Catalog Search Results
Author
Formats
Description
The Piazza Tales (1856) is a collection of short stories by American writer Herman Melville. Before publication, five of its six stories appeared in Putnam's Monthly during a period of productivity with which Melville sought to achieve popular success as a writer of literary fiction. After the failure of his novels Moby-Dick (1851) and Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (1852), Melville struggled to find a publisher who would accept his work, and contemporary...
Author
Description
This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading.Although most people do not think of Herman Melville as a particularly funny writer, his "Bartleby, the Scrivener" and The Confidence Man have kept readers laughing for a century and a half.
"Bartleby" is a simultaneously accurate and absurd depiction of life in a Wall Street office in the middle of the nineteenth century. It is the gentle comedy of a boss' helpless...
Author
Series
Description
Despite the early success of his tales of adventure in the South Seas, Herman Melville (1819–1891) suffered a reversal of fortunes with the 1851 publication of Moby-Dick. The great epic, now recognized as a masterpiece, was scorned by an uncomprehending nineteenth-century audience. Melville's preoccupation with metaphysical and philosophical issues and his use of symbols and archetypes foreshadowed elements of latter-day literature, and modern readers...
Author
Description
Early American writer Herman Melville is best known for his great American novel "Moby Dick." However, Melville was also a prolific and honest short story writer. His stories play with irony, twisting the fates of his protagonists and making sure that the reader is left with a deep sense of wonder and enlightenment. Many of his works are set from an "outsider's" perspective of immigrants in early America, which is interesting considering that Melville...
Author
Description
In this spirited saga, a promising young soldier is wounded at the battle of Bunker Hill, sets sail with John Paul Jones, and undertakes espionage at the behest of Benjamin Franklin. Herman Melville drew upon the obscure memoirs of a Revolutionary War veteran to create his only historical novel, combining Israel Potter's real-life reminiscences with fictional incidents that lead his hero into encounters with noteworthy figures of colonial America....
Author
Formats
Description
In Manhattan, an elderly lawyer's business is growing. Having two scriveners in his employ, the lawyer advertises for a third to meet demand. Enter Bartleby, a glum albeit quality scrivener. However, the lawyer quickly discovers that something is off with his new employee. When asked to perform any duties outside of copying, Bartleby responds with a canned I would prefer not to. Soon Bartleby is living at the office and performing less and less at...
7) The Piazza
Author
Series
Formats
Description
Don Benito faltered; then, like some somnambulist suddenly interfered with, vacantly stared at his visitor, and ended by looking down on the deck. He maintained this posture so long, that Captain Delano, almost equally disconcerted, and involuntarily almost as rude, turned suddenly from him, walking forward to accost one of the Spanish seamen for the desired information. But he had hardly gone five paces, when with a sort of eagerness Don Benito invited...
Author
Series
Description
"Llamadme Ismael." Muy pocos personajes literarios hay hoy tan conocidos como la ballena blanca, o Ismael o el capitán Ajab, y probablemente no haya un inicio de novela tan famoso como el de Moby-Dick. Concebida por Herman Melville como respuesta norteamericana a la gran literatura europea de finales del siglo XVIII y principios del XIX, Moby-Dick recoge la tradición romántica y gótica dando forma a un épico poema que ha llegado a ocupar en Estados...
Author
Series
Formats
Description
Considered to be the least characteristic of Melville's stories, somewhat resembling the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe, "The Bell-Tower" is a dark literary work that explores, though never fully reveals, its central mystery. An eccentric artist and architect dreams up plans for a magnificent bell tower. After receiving approval from the city, he happily begins construction. When city residents begin to notice strange occurrences...
Author
Series
Formats
Description
Chosen for inclusion in William Evans Burton's Cyclopediae of Wit and Humor of 1857, with an illustration by Henry Louis Stephens, "The Lightning-Rod Man" was the one Melville tale to be available throughout his lifetime, thanks to reissues of this volume. More a parable than a character-driven story, The Lightning-rod man is a charlatan who tries to profit by selling fearful people lightning rods during thunderstorms. The narrator has a difficult...
Author
Description
"Redburn - His First Voyage" is an 1849 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The story follows a fifteen-year-old boy from the state of New York called Wellington Redburn, who dreams only of running away to sea. When he finally manages to realize his goal, however, he finds that the reality of a life at sea is far less romantic than he envisioned.
Author
Description
If you don't know Melville's letters to Hawthorne, you don't know Melville. These letters are full of passion, humor, doubt, and spiritual yearning, and offer an intimate view of Melville's personality. Lyrical and effusive, they are literary works in themselves. This correspondence has been out of print for decades, and even when it was in print it appeared in scholarly volumes of Melville's complete correspondence, aimed at the academy. The Divine...
Author
Description
Herman Melville, du haut de ses vingt-cinq ans, nous raconte la rencontre avec un peuple étonnant du Pacifique
Nuku-Hiva, une île de l'archipel des Marquises, Pacifique. Deux tribus y vivent, l'une douce et pacifique, l'autre cannibale. Après avoir fui le navire baleinier, deux fugitifs sont recueillis par l'une des tribus. Taïpi est la relation d'une aventure qu'a connue Herman Melville avec l'un de ses coéquipiers après une campagne éprouvante...
Author
Series
Description
Moby Dick is quite a story-an adventure-man vs. nature! It's often called one of the great American novels. Reading it should be a breeze, right? Not quite... at least for most!
If you are struggling to get through Moby Dick or if you just want a bit more help, then this book is for you!
Inside you will find summaries of each scene, an overview of themes and characters, and even a condensed version of the book!
If you wish that Moby Dick was written...
In Interlibrary Loan
Didn't find what you need? Items not owned by Ajax Public Library can be requested from other Interlibrary Loan libraries to be delivered to your local library for pickup.
Didn't find it?
Can't find what you are looking for? Try our Materials Request Service. Submit Request