Melville's Short Novels: A Norton Critical Edition

Collected in this volume are Bartleby the Scrivener, Benito Cereno, and Billy Budd—presented in the best texts available, those published during Melville's lifetime and corrected by the author.

Each text has been carefully edited and annotated for student readers.

As his writing reflects, Melville was extraordinarily well read. "Contexts" collects important sources for each novel, including writings by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Amasa Delano, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

"Criticism" includes twenty-eigh...