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Herman Melville: The unknown author of Moby Dick

Herman Melville: The unknown author of Moby Dick

By KS Sandhya Iyer | Updated: 18 October 2012 18:04 IST

Herman Melville, an American author, poet and essayist well known for his classic novel Moby Dick, is the subject of the latest Google doodle.

Herman was born on 1 August 1819 to Maria Gansevoort and Allan Melville and was the third son of the eight children in the family. He was raised in a rather financially and emotionally unstable environment. In an attempt to improve the family situation, Allan, an import merchant, moved to Albany with his family in 1830 to start a fur business.

However, the venture failed miserably overseas and Allan was forced to declare bankruptcy. He died early at the age of 40 leaving nothing for his family behind.

Melville went to the Albany Academy, where he studied classics. But his schooling was quite discontinuous. He studied for a year from 1830-31 and then came back in 1836-37. In between, he went to work on his uncle's farm in Massachusetts, but not for long. He eventually travelled back to New York and secured his place as cabin boy on a New York ship bound to Liverpool.

Once he was back, Herman also worked in various jobs including banking and teaching to support his family, but was highly dissatisfied. A turning point for Herman came when he set sail aboard the whaling ship Acushnet in 1841. Melville stayed at the Marquesas Islands with his friend Richard Tobias Greene, who provided him with the much needed information for his future novels.

Based on his sea-faring adventures and stays in Polynesia and Tahiti, Melville wrote Typee and Omoo, which were first published in 1847 in England. This was followed by his next novel Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, published in two volumes in 1849.

Mardi: and a Voyage Thither captured the essence of his Polynesian adventure also reflecting much of Melville's own life on ships and the South Seas. Another semi-autobiographical novel Redburn: His First Voyage was published in 1849, which was categorised as a comedy. But Melville's writings weren't appreciated much amongst the reading fraternity and did not generate enough revenue for his family's sustenance.

Melville married Elizabeth Shaw in 1847 and they had four children. They moved to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, which was their home for the next 13 years. It was here that he got acquainted with Nathaniel Hawthorne and they became great friends.

Melville now focussed on his writing and finally completed his masterpiece Moby Dick in 1851, which initially got rather tepid reviews. Melville wrote many other novels including White Jacket (1850), The Encantadas; or, Enchanted Isles (novella, 1854), Israel Potter (1855), Piazza Tales (1856), and The Confidence Man (1857).

During the 1850s, Melville supported his family by farming and writing stories for magazines. He later traveled to Europe, where he saw his friend Hawthorne for the last time. By 1856, Melville realised that his novel-writing career was finished. He returned to New York and stopped writing fiction. For the next 20 years, Melville worked as a customs inspector and delved into poetry.

Battle Pieces (1866) was well-received. Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land (1876) was followed by his collection John Marr and Other Poems (1888) and Timoleon (1891).

Herman Melville died of a heart attack on September 28, 1891, at the age of 72. At that time, he was almost completely forgotten by all but a few admirers.

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