Read Melville's Novella Billy Budd

American novelist and one of the leading figures in the history of literature, Melville was born in New York on August 1, 1819. At nineteen, ruling out the possibility of going to college, began to embark on journeys that inspired his work, spending some time in the Pacific Islands.

He wrote his first novels about his experience as a seaman. The theme of the sea are his works Mardi (1849), Omoo (1847), Typee, a cannibalistic Eden (1846) and Redburn (1849), while the white jacket (1850) recounts her experiences in the army. His early novels quickly achieved considerable popularity ...