Raymond M. Weaver

Raymond Melbourne Weaver (1888–1948) was an American scholar and teacher who, more than anyone, began the Melville revival. Born in Baltimore, he taught English in Japan and then for thirty years at Columbia University, where his students included Lionel Trilling and Mortimer Adler. Asked in 1919 to write an article for the centenary of Melville's birth, he found almost nothing in print, sought out the novelist's granddaughter and her trunk of papers, and produced Herman Melville, Mariner and Mystic in 1921, the first full biography. Among the papers he found the manuscript of Billy Budd, which he edited and published for the first time in 1924.