Binding: Paperback
Description: ` Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges. So wrote Melville of Billy Budd Sailor among the greatest of his works and in its richness and ambiguity among the most problematic. As the critic E. L. Grant Watson writes ` In this short history of the impressment and hanging of a handsome sailor - boy are to be discovered problems as profound as those which puzzle us in the pages of the Gospels. Outwardly a compelling narrative of events aboard a British man - of - war during the turmoil of the Napoleonic Wars Billy Budd Sailor is a nautical recasting of the Fall a parable of good and evil a meditation on justice and political governance and a searching portrait of three extraordinary men. The passion it has aroused in its readers over the years is a measure of how deeply it addresses some of the fundamental questions of experience that every age must reexamine for itself. The selection in this volume represents the best of Melville's shorter fiction and uses the most authoritative texts. The eight shorter tales included here were composed during Melville's years as a magazine writer in the mid 1850's and establish him along with Hawthorne and Poe as the greatest American story writer of his age. Several of the tales - Bartleby the Scrivener Benito Cereno The Encantadas The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids - are acknowledged masterpieces of their genres. All show Melville a master of irony point - of - view and tone whose fables ripple out in nearly endless circles of meaning. About THE Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features including expert introductions by leading authorities helpful notes to clarify the text up - to - date bibliographies for further study and much more.
Title: Billy Budd Sailor And Selected Tales
Author(s): Melville Herman, Milder, Robert (Professor Of English, Professor Of English, Washington University, St Louis, Missouri)
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Barcode: 9780199538911
Pages: 464 Pages
Publication Date: 4/15/2009
Series: Oxford World's Classics
Category: Classic Fiction