Books : Great Short Works of Herman Melville (Perennial Classics)
|
|
In association with Amazon.com
|
by: Herman Melville
List Price: $13.95Amazon.com's Price: $11.16 You Save: $2.79 (20%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.3
EAN: 9780060586546
ISBN: 0060586540
Label: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 512
Publication Date: 2004-03
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Release Date: March 02, 2004
Sales Rank: 223631
Studio: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Related Items:
Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Billy Budd, Sailor and Bartleby, the Scrivener are two of the most revered shorter works of fiction in history. Here, they are collected along with 19 other stories in a beautifully redesigned collection that represents the best short work of an American master.As Warner Berthoff writes in his introduction to this volume, 'It is hard to think of a major novelist or storyteller who is not also a first-rate entertainer . . . a master, according to choice, of high comedy, of one or another robust species of expressive humour, or of some special variety of the preposterous, the grotesque, the absurd. And Melville, certainly, is no exception. A kind of vigorous supervisory humour is his natural idiom as a writer, and one particular attraction of his shorter work is the fresh further display it offers of this prime element in his literary character.'
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - "I'd prefer not to..."
This book includes one of my favorite works by Melville (or anyone, for that matter), "Bartleby The Scrivener". It tells the story of the document copier (or scrivener) Bartleby as narrated by his increasingly perplexed, unnamed employer. Unlike Mobey Dick which is so symbolic and philosophical, I gave up on page 13 or so, this story is strangely accessible and contemporary. The alienation that Bartleby feels for his job, his fellow employees, and the narrator is, at once, sad and humorous. ... Read More
Rating: - Ah Bartelby!
This is worth buying if only for the masterpiece that is Bartelby the Scrivener. One of the all time great short stories, it tells the story, narrated by an employer in a Wall Street Law office who finds a peculiar scrivener called Bartelby in his employ.
Bartelby is initially a quiet and efficient copyist, but when asked to undertake extra work, he deflects it with the simple rejoinder 'I would prefer not to.' He repeats this mantra, over and over, calmly and without malice. 'You will ... Read More
Rating: - as always...
a great collection! when it comes to Melville, i usually prefer annotated editions, but, this particular version does not include either 'The Confidence Man' or 'Moby Dick', thus, i believe i will be just fine. If you've already read 'Typee', 'Pierre', or either of the two above mentioned titles, then this collection may just be for you. It's worth it alone just for 'Billy Budd'. My one complaint? The cover artwork depicts ol' Herms to be a distant relative of Leonardo da Vinci, and while ol' Herms was ... Read More
Rating: - truth comes in with darkness
This is the beginning of American literature. And these short works I think tell the tale more clearly than that confusing (though still great) big book Moby Dick. Melville wrote from an outsiders perspective and he was an outsider as perhaps all Americans were because we did not yet have an identity as a people. Melville explores our institutions of justice and our ability to comprehend life through them in Billy Budd in the way a foreigner would examine justice and understanding in a land whose logic ... Read More
Rating: - THE Collection to buy...
This edition of Melville's short fiction is, I think,
the best...certainly a real bargain at this price.
In this one volume, the reader gets all of Melville's
short fiction -- plus the novella, *Billy Budd, Sailor*
(the Harrison Hayford/Merton M. Sealts, Jr. "definitive"
Reading Text published by the Univ. of Chicago in 1962).
The collection is edited and has an excellent
"Introduction" by Warner Berthoff.
The selections are each preceded by a very informative
Read More
|
|
|
