A Historical Guide to Herman Melville / Edition 1

by Giles Gunn

Overview

This collection gathers together original essays dealing with Melville's relations with his historical era, with class, with the marketplace, with ethnic otherness, and with religion. These essays are framed by a new, short biography by Robert Milder, an introduction by Giles Gunn, an illustrated chronology, and a bibliographical essay. Taken together, these pieces afford a fresh and searching set of perspectives on Melville's connections both with his own age and also with our own. This book makes the case, as does no other collection of criticism of its size, for Melville's commanding centrality to nineteenth-century American writing.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195142822
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	06/02/2005
Series:	Historical Guides to American Authors
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	8.22(w) x 5.58(h) x 0.74(d)

About the Author

Giles Gunn is Professor of English and of Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Table of Contents

Introduction, Giles GunnMelville in His Time1. Herman Melville, 1819-1891: A Brief Biography, Robert Milder2. Romantic Answers, Victorian Questions: Cultural Possibilities for Melville at Mid-Century, Leon Chai3. Melville and Class, Myra Jehlen4. Melville and the Marketplace, Sheila Post5. Without the Pale: Melville and Ethnic Cosmopolitanism, Timothy Marr6. "Wandering To-and-Fro": Melville and Religion, Emory ElliottIllustrated ChronologyBibliographical Essay, Giles Gunn

Editorial Reviews

"This book offers much of value. Highly recommended."—Choice

From the Publisher