Pierre; or, The Ambiguities

Perhaps Melville's most difficult and wildly textured work, "Pierre; or, The Ambiguities", to this day evades easy categorization or critical interpretation. Now seen as an ambitious foray into proto-modernist composition, the text was initially met with utter consternation and was a commercial failure. Published a year after "Moby Dick", this novel tracks the nineteen year old Pierre Glendinning through his life in New York City as a fledgling novelist. Mr. Melville himself can be seen in ...