Herman Melville: Typee

0. PREFACE and INTRODUCTION TO THE EDITION OF 1892 (continued)

Melville's power in describing and investing with romance scenes and incidents witnessed and participated in by himself, and his frequent failure of success as an inventor of characters and situations, were early pointed out by his critics. More recently Mr. Henry S. Salt has drawn the same distinction very carefully in an excellent article contributed to the Scottish Art Review. In a prefatory note to 'Mardi' (1849), Melville declares that, as his former books have been received as romance instead of reality, he will now try his hand at pure fiction. 'Mardi' may be called a splendid failure. It must have been soon after the completion of 'Omoo' that Melville began to study the writings of Sir Thomas Browne. Heretofore our author's style was rough in places, but marvellously simple and direct. 'Mardi' is burdened with an over-rich diction, which Melville never entirely outgrew. The scene of this romance, which opens well, is laid in the South Seas, but everything soon becomes overdrawn and fantastical, and the thread of the story loses itself in a mystical allegory.

'Redburn,' already mentioned, succeeded 'Mardi' in the same year, and was a partial return to the author's earlier style. In 'White-Jacket; or, the World in a Man-of-War' (1850), Melville almost regained it. This book has no equal as a picture of life aboard a sailing man-of-war, the lights and shadows of naval existence being well contrasted.

With 'Moby Dick; or, the Whale' (1851), Melville reached the topmost notch of his fame. The book represents, to a certain extent, the conflict between the author's earlier and later methods of composition, but the gigantic conception of the 'White Whale,' as Hawthorne expressed it, permeates the whole work, and lifts it bodily into the highest domain of romance. 'Moby Dick' contains an immense amount of information concerning the habits of the whale and the methods of its capture, but this is characteristically introduced in a way not to interfere with the narrative. The chapter entitled 'Stubb Kills a Whale' ranks with the choicest examples of descriptive literature.

'Moby Dick' appeared, and Melville enjoyed to the full the enhanced reputation it brought him. He did not, however, take warning from 'Mardi,' but allowed himself to plunge more deeply into the sea of philosophy and fantasy.