Herman Melville, Mariner and Mystic

by Raymond M. Weaver

Herman Melville, Mariner and Mystic, published in 1921, was the first full biography of the author of Moby-Dick, written when he had been almost forgotten for thirty years. Raymond M. Weaver, a young instructor at Columbia, worked from family papers made available by Melville's granddaughter and from the novels themselves, following his subject from a bankrupt childhood in New York through whaling voyages in the Pacific, early fame, the failure of his later books and his long silence as a customs inspector. The book has been corrected on many points by later scholars, but it began the Melville revival, and Weaver's enthusiasm for a writer nobody else wanted still comes through. The full text is available to read online in your browser on Vinteuil, and the first chapter is free.