Herman Melville
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Herman Melville was an American writer of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are Moby-Dick, Typee, a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia, and Billy Budd, Sail
1870 portrait
An 1810 portrait of Melville's father, Allan Melvill, by John Rubens Smith, now housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. In Melville's novel Pierre (1852), he fictionalized this painting as a portrait of Pierre's father.
A c. 1815 portrait of Melville's mother Maria Gansevoort Melville by Ezra Ames, now on display at the National Gallery of Art
Richard Tobias Greene, who jumped ship with Melville in the Marquesas Islands and is Toby in Typee, pictured in 1846
Billy Budd
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Billy Budd, Sailor, formerly known as Billy Budd, Foretopman, is a novella by American writer Herman Melville, left unfinished at his death in 1891. Acclaimed by critics as a masterpiece when a hastil
Herman Melville
…American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are Moby-Dick (1851), Typee (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia, and Billy Budd, Sailor, a posthumously published novella. At the time of his death, Melville was not well known to the public, but 1919, the centennial of his birth, was the…
Opening leaf of the story portion of the Billy Budd manuscript with pencil notations
The last known image of the author, taken in 1885.
Charles Nolte as Billy Budd in the 1951 Broadway production