The complex author of the quintessential American masterpiece is demystified by a leading contemporary critic. Hardwick's novelistic flair reveals a former whaleship deck-hand whose voyages were the stuff of travel romances that seduced the public. A single novel, an eternal classic, established him as a founding father of American literature. Now, a century after his death, a new popular surge of interest in Herman Melville calls for Elizabeth Hardwick's rich analysis of "the whole of Melville's works, uneven as it is, & the challenging shape of his life, a story of the creative history of an extraordinary American genius." Hardwick's superb critical interpretation & award-winning novelistic flair reveal a former whaleship deck hand whose voyages were the stuff of travel romances that seduced the public. Later, a self-described "thought-diver" into "the truth of the human heart" Melville harbored a bitterness that knew no bounds when that same public failed to embrace his masterwork, Moby-Dick. Invaluable for enthusiasts of American literature, Herman Melville is itself a masterpiece of critical commentary in the tradition of D.H. Lawrence's Studies in Classic American Literature.