Herman Melville

Herman Melville (1819-1891) was one of the most important novelists in American literature; He was also a short story writer, essayist and poet, with more than 30 published works. Melville, whose name any reader recognizes from "Moby Dick", the story of the chase of the great white whale, was born into a family of great prestige, but with great economic difficulties, which his parents hid from Herman and his seven siblings. The father suffered from serious emotional imbalances and there were religious differences in the family. Herman and his siblings accompanied their parents to various American cities whenever they tried to rebuild their lives, and their education was done in several schools. He had several jobs in offices and shops, and from 1839 to 1844 he was a sailor on board several ships. In the five years that followed, he published most of his books, inspired by his maritime experience, and saw critics and especially the public recognize his merits. He began a fruitful correspondence and friendship with the writer Nathaniel Hawthorne and published his masterpiece "Moby Dick" in 1851 (first in England and only later in the United States). From those years on, Melville, who had married and planned to make a living from writing, fell into public oblivion and until the end of his life had to accept several jobs to survive. It was only after his death, and on the occasion of the centenary of his birth, that critics rediscovered the author and his genius and Melville became part of the pantheon of the great names of universal letters.