Best of Melville (Annotated)
Enriched Edition. Whaling obsessions and South Pacific odysseys: Moby-Dick, Typee, The Piazza Tales, The Confidence-Man, plus D. H. Lawrence's critiqueBy Herman Melville
Length57h 40m
About this audiobook
Best of Melville gathers the essential range of Herman Melville's achievement, from maritime adventure and metaphysical quest to satirical sketches and dark moral inquiry. Whether represented by the oceanic vastness of Moby-Dick, the haunting ambiguity of "Bartleby, the Scrivener," or the disciplined tragic force of Billy Budd, Melville's prose joins biblical cadence, Shakespearean intensity, philosophical speculation, and precise nautical realism. The collection situates him within American Romanticism while revealing how persistently he unsettled its confidence in providence, progress, and the heroic self. Melville's writing emerged from a life unusually rich in experience and disillusion. Born in New York in 1819, he worked at sea as a young man, voyaging in the Pacific and encountering the social, imperial, and spiritual contradictions that would animate his fiction. Commercial success came early, but his more ambitious works baffled many contemporaries, leaving him neglected for decades before twentieth-century critics recognized his extraordinary modernity. This volume is recommended to readers seeking a concentrated encounter with one of America's most challenging and visionary writers. It offers adventure, psychological depth, theological unease, and stylistic grandeur in equal measure.
This enriched edition has been carefully crafted to add value to your reading experience.
- An Introduction draws the threads together, discussing why these diverse authors and texts belong in one collection.
- Historical Context explores the cultural and intellectual currents that shaped these works, offering insight into the shared (or contrasting) eras that influenced each writer.
- A combined Synopsis (Selection) briefly outlines the key plots or arguments of the included pieces, helping readers grasp the anthology's overall scope without giving away essential twists.
- A collective Analysis highlights common themes, stylistic variations, and significant crossovers in tone and technique, tying together writers from different backgrounds.
- Reflection questions encourage readers to compare the different voices and perspectives within the collection, fostering a richer understanding of the overarching conversation.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 4.5 (12)
Includes Amazon
GenreLiterary Classics, General Fiction
Length57 hrs 40 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateSep 20, 2013
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Best of Melville (Annotated)
26CHAPTER TWO
2Introduction
27CHAPTER THREE
3Historical Context
28CHAPTER FOUR
4Synopsis (Selection)
29CHAPTER FIVE
5Best of Melville: Moby-Dick + D. H. Lawrence's critique of Moby-Dick + Typee + The Piazza Tales (The Piazza + Bartleby + Benito Cereno + The Lightning-Rod Man + The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles + The Bell-Tower) + The Confidence-Man
30CHAPTER SIX
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6Moby-Dick
31CHAPTER SEVEN
7Chapter 1
32CHAPTER EIGHT
8Chapter 11
33CHAPTER NINE
9Chapter 21
34CHAPTER TEN
10Chapter 31
35CHAPTER ELEVEN
11Chapter 41
36CHAPTER TWELVE
12Chapter 51
37CHAPTER THIRTEEN
13Chapter 61
38CHAPTER FOURTEEN
14Chapter 71
39CHAPTER FIFTEEN
15Chapter 81
40CHAPTER SIXTEEN
16Chapter 91
41CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
17Chapter 101
42CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
18Chapter 111
43CHAPTER NINETEEN
19Chapter 121
44CHAPTER TWENTY
20Chapter 131
45CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
21D. H. Lawrence’s critique of Moby-Dick
46CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
22Typee
47CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
23PREFACE
48CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
24INTRODUCTION TO THE EDITION OF 1892
49CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
25CHAPTER ONE
50CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
50 American ClassicsHerman Melville, Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, Sinclair Lewis, Louisa May Alcott, Emily Dickinson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Kate Chopin, Theodore Dreiser, Edith Wharton, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Mark Twain, Mary Mapes Dodge, Jack London, James Fenimore Cooper, Stephen Crane, O. Henry, Henry James, Edgar Allan Poe, Washington Irving, H. P. Lovecraft, L. Frank Baum, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Lew Wallace, Max Brand, Zane Grey, Dillon Wallace, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Richard Henry Dana, William Dean Howells, Edward Bellamy, Willa Cather, Ambrose Bierce, E. W. Hornung, Wallace D. Wattles, William Walker Atkinson823h 7m$1.99
Moby DickHerman Melville24h 41m$1.99 · $0.00
New York Narratives: A 40-Book Library of Old New York Stories & NovelsHerman Melville, Theodore Dreiser, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Edith Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Horatio Jr. Alger, Edgar Fawcett, Grace Livingston Hill, H. C. Witwer, Myra Kelly, Clara Morris, Louis Tracy, Basil King, Arthur Stringer, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Montague Glass, Emma Speed Sampson, A. M. Williamson, C. N. Williamson, Cosmo Hamilton, Robert W. Chambers, H. C. Bunner, Louis Joseph Vance, Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow, Anthony Hope, John Bell Bouton, Gilbert Parker, George Barr McCutcheon, Owen Johnson, Ernest Poole, Lemuel Ely Quigg363h 31m$1.99
Moby DickHerman Melville24h 41m3.8 (708.5K)$1.99 · $0.00
THE GREAT SEA ADVENTURE - Pirate Novels, Treasure-Hunt Tales & Maritime StoriesHerman Melville, R. L. Stevenson, Daniel Defoe, Tobias Smollett, Walter Scott, Frederick Marryat, Edgar Allan Poe, James Fenimore Cooper, Thomas Mayne Reid, Victor Hugo, R. M. Ballantyne, Jules Verne, Jack London, L. Frank Baum, Randall Parrish, Charles Boardman Hawes, Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling, Ralph Henry Barbour, Rafael Sabatini, Jeffery Farnol, Henry De Vere Stacpoole569h 41m4.4 (11)$1.99 · $0.00
Billy Budd (Annotated)Herman Melville5h 12m3.2 (20.1K)$2 · $0.00
Benito Cereno & Bartleby (Annotated)Herman Melville6h 34m$2 · $0.00
Die größten philosophischen Romane (Kommentiert)Herman Melville, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Franz Kafka, Friedrich Nietzsche, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, André Gide, Rainer Maria Rilke, Joseph Conrad, Knut Hamsun, Klaus Mann, Fjodor Michailowitsch Dostojewski, Oscar Wilde, Thomas Wolfe176h 27m4.3 (10)$1 · $0.00
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Taipi (Kommentiert)Herman Melville11h 52m4.3 (107)$1 · $0.00
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