In this study of Melville's Billy Budd, Sailor, renowned Melville scholar Hershel Parker provides the fullest introduction to and analysis of this work to date. It is the first complete reading of Billy Budd to draw on the definitive but neglected Hayford-Sealts Genetic Text. For the first time, it places Billy Budd in the context of Melville's writings and projects of the last decade of his life; and it is the first to present the work as a product of the post-Gilded Age and fin-de-siecle period rather than of the mid-century high romanticism of Moby-Dick.
- ISBN13 9780810109629
- Publish Date 1 March 1991 (first published 1 January 1990)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Northwestern University Press
- Format Paperback
- Pages 158
- Language English