Herman Melville's

Billy Budd, Foretopman


After the financial failure of Moby Dick in 1851 and a short stint trying to make ends meet with a short novel and several short stories, Melville went into semi-retirement as a writer rather than produce popular stories that were beneath his talents. For nearly forty years Herman Melville worked in the New York Custom House in quiet anonymity. His final short novel, Billy Budd, was not published until the 1920s, when critics rediscovered Moby Dick and Herman Melville. Over the past seventy years, Billy Budd has risen as one of the greatest novels written by one of America's greatest novelists.

[Billy Budd -- Discussion Paper] [Captain Vere's Correct Decision in Billy Budd]

[Captain Vere's Role in Billy Budd]

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