Herman Melville- Complete Poems

by Herman Melville

  1847

  In February goes to Washington seeking a job in the customs service. Travels in March to Boston where Lizzie refuses to set an early date for their wedding. Omoo published by John Murray in London, March 30, and by Harper & Brothers in New York, April 24, to favorable reviews. Begins writing Mardi in Lansingburgh in mid-May. Returns to Boston June 1 and persuades Lizzie, on strength of Omoo’s sales, to marry him soon. On June 26 Horace Greeley in his New York Tribune and G. W. Peck in the July Whig Review condemn Typee and Omoo, Peck ferociously. Fayaway, the Marquesan maiden in Typee, becomes Melville’s best-known character throughout his life. Married August 4 to Elizabeth Shaw at her Boston home on Mount Vernon Street (to avoid admirers); they honeymoon in Canada. With money from Shaw and from Allan’s bride, Sophia Thurston Melville (b. 1827), buys an indenture of lease on a house on Fourth Avenue in New York, and mother, sisters, brothers, and their brides move there in mid-October. Not a mansion, it has central heat and hot and cold water to the fourth floor. Resumes work on Mardi.

  1848

  Borrows old books from editor Evert Duyckinck as he elaborates Mardi; his romantic Pacific adventure changes into a philosophical allegory. In early May when Melville says he has finished Mardi, Lizzie visits her family. Adds an unplanned section of political allegory in which he comments on current European revolutions and American politics.

  1849

  In February Murray rejects Mardi and Melville’s agent offers it to Richard Bentley. The Melvilles’ first child, Malcolm, born at the Shaw house in Boston, February 16. After Malcolm’s birth, Melville reads Shakespeare with full attention for the first time, in a seven-volume edition. Bentley accepts Mardi on March 1, and pays Melville well, £210, despite the possibility that he cannot buy a secure international copyright. Mardi published by Bentley in London, March 16, and by the Harpers in New York, April 14. In Manhattan boards the Navigator May 31 to see his brother Tom off for China. Remembering when Gansevoort saw him off for Liverpool in 1839, abandons previous plans and starts writing a book based on his first voyage. Writes Redburn quickly in June and July. The writing comes easily but the aftermath is momentous, for Melville casually makes use of memories of his impoverished adolescence, and in the following months those memories trigger intense and rapid psychological growth. Writes White-Jacket in August and September. Leaves for England October 11 to sell White-Jacket in person and then spend a year gathering material for writing more books, if only he can obtain a large advance for White-Jacket. Makes extravagant plans for tours that might take him “down the Danube from Vienna to Constantinople; thence to Athens,” then Jerusalem, Alexandria, and the Pyramids, a “grand circuit of Europe & the East.” Redburn published by Richard Bentley in London, October 20, and by Harper & Brothers in New York, November 10. Certain of his travel plans, on November 10, in London, Melville writes to Bentley, then in Brighton, that if they don’t meet right away, they can meet “in the Spring” when he returns from his European and Mediterranean travels. In mid-November Bentley generously offers £200 for White-Jacket on publication, but will “make no advance.” After calling on a series of London publishers, none of whom will make an advance on White-Jacket, abandons travel plans to eastern Europe, the Holy Land, and Rome. Makes a brief trip to France, Belgium, and into Germany as far as the Rhine country before returning to London, November 27 to December 13. After seeing Nelson’s Victory, sails from Portsmouth on Christmas Day.

  1850

  Home in early February, begins Moby-Dick. White-Jacket published in London by Bentley, February 2, and in New York by the Harpers, March 9. In a letter of May 1 to Richard Henry Dana, Jr., describes his whaling book as half written. Takes his family to vacation in Pittsfield at the Melvill place in July. New York editors Evert Duyc­kinck and his friend the writer Cornelius Mathews arrive August 2 in Pittsfield to visit Melville. The Melvill house has just been sold to J. Rowland and Sarah Morewood, but Melville’s aunt Mary Melvill and her children occupy it until well into 1851. Meets Nathaniel Hawthorne August 5 during an outing to Monument Mountain in the Berkshires. The reclusive Hawthorne invites Melville to spend a few days with him in Lenox, Massachusetts, before going home to New York. Scans a copy of Mosses from an Old Manse and dashes off “Hawthorne and His Mosses” for Duyckinck to publish in the Literary World (August 17 and 24). Having so responsibly renounced his grand tour late in 1849, Melville now gets what he wants. On September 12, with $3,000 from Shaw, most of which he uses for a down payment, buys Dr. John M. Brewster’s farm in Pittsfield, which adjoins the Melvill place on the east—in riding or driving distance to his new friend Hawthorne. In early October moves to the farm, which he names Arrowhead, and before Thanksgiving establishes a work routine.

  1851

  In late March sells the indenture of lease on the Fourth Avenue house and settles with Sophia Thurston Melville but does not have enough to pay Dr. Brewster, the previous owner and mortgage holder, what is overdue on the down payment for Arrowhead. After the Harpers refuse to make an advance, borrows $2,050 from T. D. Stewart, a friend from Lansingburgh; pays Dr. Brewster and has money to plate his book himself and offer it to a publisher other than Harper & Brothers. Signs agreement September 9 for Bentley to publish The Whale in London. Changes The Whale to the more memorable title Moby-Dick, but the new title reaches Bentley in London too late for him to substitute it. In shoving the preliminary sections to the end of the third volume, the “Epilogue” is lost, so The Whale seems to have a first-person narrator who perishes before writing the book. The Whale published by Bentley in London, October 18. Begins Pierre, a novel about a young American patrician who undergoes compressed mental and psychological growth in which he comes to a tragic view of life and in which from the most idealistic of motives he wreaks havoc among those he loves. Second child, Stanwix, born October 22. Melville and Hawthorne, guests at a November 4 party in Lenox, confer on their forthcoming A Wonder Book and Moby-Dick, and discuss the Hawthornes’ imminent departure for West Newton, Massachusetts. Moby-Dick published by Harper & Brothers in New York, November 14. At the Curtis Hotel in Lenox in mid-November, presents an inscribed copy of Moby-Dick to the dedicatee, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne reads Moby-Dick fast and not only praises it but offers to write a review of it. Melville rejects the offer. Pushing forward on Pierre in December, is angered by gossip in Pittsfield that Moby-Dick is “more than Blasphemous.” On December 31 or the following day, takes the completed Pierre to New York and offers it to the Harpers.

  1852

  In early January, providing religious denunciations of Moby-Dick and its slow sales as reasons, the Harpers offer Melville twenty cents on the dollar (after costs) instead of their previous terms, fifty cents on the dollar after costs. They have a secret plan to make a fortune from Dickens’s Bleak House and to defeat the movement for an international copyright law in the process. Probably after Evert Duyckinck is shown Pierre, turns violently against the Duyckinck brothers, writing them into the completed manuscript as joint editors of the Captain Kidd Monthly (pirates of British literature), whom he introduces in a chapter dealing with a wholly new piece of information—that his hero Pierre Glendinning had been a juvenile author. Rather than stop after satirizing his former friend Duyckinck, enlarges the book, making Pierre the author not only of juvenile exercises, but also, after his tragic growth, a young author who immaturely attempts a mature book. Returns to Pittsfield about January 21, having already greatly expanded the manuscript. In Harper’s Magazine, March 1, the Harpers tout their paying Charles Dickens $2,000 to serialize Bleak House. On the news, they gain tens of thousands of subscribers. In the New York Times (which they secretly control) the Harpers wage a successful fight against the efforts for an international copyright law. Absent such an agreement, American publishers continue to pirate British books while underpaying American authors. The Harpers’ covert man in the Times explains that sometimes “the individual” (an author like Melville) “must be sacrif
iced.” Richard Bentley informs Melville on March 4 of his losses on his books but nevertheless proposes to publish Pierre, with no advance, on half profits. Fails to respond to Bentley’s offer to bring Pierre out in London in an expurgated form with no advance, so no true En­glish edition appears (sheets sent over by the Harpers are bound and sold by Sampson Low with their own title page). Defaults on interest owed to T. D. Stewart for the loan made the previous year, and defaults twice each year, in May and November, until 1856, when Stewart threatens foreclosure on the already mortgaged farm. In Nantucket John Clifford tells Melville and Judge Shaw on July 6 of the great patience and endurance of the Pembroke woman, Agatha Hatch, who married a shipwrecked sailor who later abandoned her. Pierre published by Harper & Brothers in New York, July 29. It provokes a storm of outrage, for it deals perturbingly with a series of false family relationships in one of which incest is openly hinted at. Everything Melville writes after Pierre is aftermath. Broods over Clifford’s story of Agatha Hatch and repeatedly urges Hawthorne to make fictional use of the material. After visiting Hawthorne, now in Concord, decides to write the story himself.

  1853

  Spends mid-December 1852 through May 1853 writing the story and completes it the same week his daughter Elizabeth is born, in late May, calling it The Isle of the Cross. Offers the book to the Harpers, but they do not accept it. Melville’s failure to publish The Isle of the Cross is compounded by the failure of the family’s efforts to secure him a post in a foreign consulate. In summer writes short tales, including “Bartleby, the Scrivener.” Sister Catherine marries John C. Hoadley, a self-educated engineer and amateur poet who becomes Melville’s most sympathetic and acute reader within the family, September 15. Plans a new book on tortoise hunting in the Galapagos Islands and alludes to The Isle of the Cross in a late November letter to the Harpers as still “in hand.” “Bartleby, the Scrivener. A Story of Wall-Street,” appears in Putnam’s in two installments in November and December, and “Cock-A-Doodle-Doo! or, The Crowing of the Noble Cock Beneventano,” appears in the December Harper’s. In a conflagration at Harpers in December, sheets and bound volumes are destroyed but all plates and the contracts and correspondence are spared. The Harpers unscrupulously charge Melville for the costs of reprinting copies of his books even though they had already charged against him the cost of books destroyed by the fire.

  1854

  The International Copyright Law is killed until the 1890s. For the remainder of his life Melville will not earn any money from England. “The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles” serialized in Putnam’s March through May. In Harper’s for June appears “Poor Man’s Pudding and Rich Man’s Crumbs”; for July, “The Happy Failure. A Story of the River Hudson.” In July first installment of Israel Potter appears in Putnam’s Magazine; serialization continues through March. In August “The Lightning-Rod Man” published in Putnam’s; “The Fiddler” appears in the September Harper’s. Apparently, Melville makes no further attempt to publish The Isle of the Cross, and perhaps destroys it.

  1855

  In February, is “helpless” from rheumatism. Frances, his fourth child and second daughter, born March 2. Israel Potter published in book form by G. P. Putnam & Co. in New York and sold in England by Sampson Low with their own title page, March 10. In April Harper’s prints “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids.” Suffers flare-up of sciatica in June; abandons the book on tortoise hunting. “The Bell-Tower” appears in Putnam’s in August. Defaults September 14 on the $90 interest he owes Dr. John M. Brewster (defaults as well on the $92.25 owed to T. D. Stewart each May 1 and November 1). “Benito Cereno” serialized in Putnam’s October through December. Cantankerous aunt Catherine Quackenboss Gansevoort dies October 29 in Gansevoort, Saratoga County, and mother and sister Fanny stay at the Mansion House to care for Herman Gansevoort. Begins work on The Confidence-Man, an allegorical satire on many aspects of American optimism. The chapter on China Aster allegorizes his friendly loan from T. D. Stewart. In November “Jimmy Rose” appears in Harper’s.

  1856

  “The ’Gees” appears in the March Harper’s, “I and My Chimney” in the March Putnam’s, and “The Apple-Tree Table; or, Original Spiritual Manifestations” in the May Putnam’s. The Piazza Tales published by Dix, Edwards & Co. in New York, May 31, and distributed in London by Sampson Low. After T. D. Stewart threatens foreclosure on Arrowhead (although it is mortgaged to Dr. Brew­ster), Melville manages to sell half of his farm, with Shaw handling legal complications. Acting through Melville’s brother Allan, Shaw finances a prolonged European and Near Eastern tour for his son-in-law—Melville’s heart’s desire in 1849. Assigns Allan to complete arrangements for the publication of The Confidence-Man. Eight years since his last voyage to Europe, boards a steamer for Glasgow October 11. Visits Glasgow and Edinburgh, then makes his way to Liverpool, where Hawthorne is now counsel. Locates Hawthorne at the consulate in Liverpool and goes with him to his house, up the coast in Southport, November 10. Hawthorne takes off November 12 to spend the day with Melville, and the two men take a long walk along the sea. They sit down in a hollow among the sand hills, sheltered from the wind, and Melville, as he always did in the Berkshires, begins “to reason of Providence and futurity, and of everything that lies beyond human ken.” Together they tour the medieval city of Chester, November 15, apparently farther out of Liverpool than Melville had ventured in 1839. Sails November 18 for the Mediterranean.

  1857

  After a stopover in Egypt and a stay of three weeks in the Holy Land, goes to Greece, Sicily, Naples, and Rome; then tours northern Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands before returning to England. The Confidence-Man published by Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans & Roberts in London, April 1 (Hawthorne having acted as his agent) and by Dix, Edwards & Co. in New York, on the same day; earns not a penny from either edition. Arrives in London April 26, then visits Oxford and Stratford-upon-Avon before going to Liverpool, where he sees Hawthorne for the last time; embarks May 6 on homeward trip. Arrives in New York May 20, then rejoins his wife in Boston. Announces he does not plan to write any more at present; instead, he hopes to earn a living by lecturing. Begins lecturing in November on “Statues in Rome.”

  1858

  In January lectures again on “Statues in Rome.” A severe attack in March of what he calls “crick in the back” lays him up at his uncle Herman’s house in Gansevoort; according to his wife’s notes, he never regains “his former vigor & strength.” Determines in late July to transform himself into a poet, knowing that in the United States poetry is a more popular and respected literary form than fiction. Sophia Thurston Melville dies October 3 of tuberculosis, leaving brother Allan a widower with four daughters. Lectures twice on “The South Seas” in December.

  1859

  Lectures again on “The South Seas,” January to March. Submits on May 18 “two Pieces” to a magazine, probably poems from the book he is working on. Keeping it a secret between himself and his wife, progresses on the book of poems, some perhaps based on travels in 1856–1857. In November lectures on “Travel.”

  1860

  At Danvers and Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, in February, repeats his lecture “Travel.” Signs papers in early May relieving him of all indebtedness to Shaw and putting the title to Arrowhead solely in the name of his wife. Instructs Lizzie and brother Allan to publish “Poems by Herman Melville.” Leaves Allan a set of “Memoranda”—the fullest surviving instructions he left for the publication of any of his works—before embarking May 31 for San Francisco from Boston aboard the clipper ship Meteor, as a guest of the captain, his youngest brother Tom. Expects to continue onward from San Francisco to Manila, and from there to Calcutta. In June Evert Duyckinck sends the poetry manuscript to one publisher who rejects it, then to a second, who also rejects it. In the Pacific, reads epic poems by Homer, Dante, Spenser, Milton, and others, and contemplates a long poem to follow up his own Poems,
which he assumes has been printed. The Meteor docks October 12 at the Vallejo Street wharf in San Francisco. The news: publishers have refused Poems and Tom is ordered to wait for a cargo to carry to England. Melville leaves for home October 20 aboard the Panama steamer Cortes.

  1861

  In February Allan initiates a new campaign to gain Melville a consulship. Melville arrives in Washington March 22, office-seeking, as he had done in 1847. In late March Judge Shaw is in his final illness in Boston; Melville and Lizzie arrive too late to see him before his death, at eighty, March 29. Melville and the Shaws attend the funeral for the late Chief Justice—a state ceremony—April 3.