Herman Melville Short Stories
A Seven-Day Introduction to the Man Beyond Moby-Dick
The stories Melville wrote after the world ignored his masterpiece.
Available in ebook and paperback. The link takes you to your local Amazon store.
After the public failure of Moby-Dick, Herman Melville turned inward and sideways. These seven stories — from the claustrophobic silence of a Wall Street office to the volcanic stillness of the Galapagos Islands, from a salesman hawking lightning rods door-to-door to a bellmaker who mistakes craft for divinity — are brief but heavy as anchors.
Each piece places a human figure against an institution, a landscape, or an irresistible machine — and lets the situation speak its uneasy truth. What is the cost of industriousness, contentment, or withdrawal when the world counts lives by their usefulness? You don't need a literature degree. You need a week.
Inside this volume
- Bartleby, the Scrivener
- The Lightning-Rod Man
- Cock-A-Doodle-Doo!
- The Encantadas
- The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids
- The Bell-Tower
- The Fiddler
Every volume includes
- Seven complete short stories, one for each day
- A reading note before each story, so you're never reading blind
- An introduction to the author and where they sit in literary history
- Discussion questions built in — for reflection or group use
- An annotated guide to what to read next
Start With One Story
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