Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (Penguin Classics) - Softcover

Melville, Herman

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140434887 ISBN 13: 9780140434880

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 1996

Synopsis

Typee is a fast-moving adventure tale, an autobiographical account of the author's Polynesian stay, an examination of the nature of good and evil, and a frank exploration of sensuality and exotic ritual. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

About this title

Review:

"A classic of American literature [and] the pioneer in South Sea romance."
- Arthur Stedman

About the Author:

Herman Melville (1819-91) became in his late twenties a highly successful author of exotic novels based on his experiences as a sailor - writing in quick succession Typee, Omoo, Redburn and White-Jacket. However, his masterpiece Moby-Dick was met with incomprehension and the other later works which are now the basis of his reputation, such as Bartleby, the Scrivener and The Confidence-Man, were failures. Melville stopped writing fiction and the rest of his long life was spent first as a lecturer and then, for nineteen years, as a customs official in New York City. He was also the author of the immensely long poem Clarel, which was similarly dismissed. At the end of his life he wrote Billy Budd, Sailor which was published posthumously in 1924.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0140434887
• ISBN 13: 9780140434880
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368