Introduction

Summary

Herman Melville collected and scrutinized the reviews of his books, especially in his early career, when he commented on them frequently in his letters and in his first journal. In May 1846, three months after the publication of his first book, Typee, a partly autobiographical, partly fictionalized account of his adventures in the Marquesas Islands, Melville wrote to his brother Gansevoort in London (unaware that he had died more than two weeks earlier): “I need not ask you to send me every notice of any kind that you see or hear of.” The following September he listed for John Murray, his English publisher, the English reviews he had seen, and he asked Murray to send him any additional ones he came across (Correspondence, 66). Melville's eagerness to see as many of his reviews as possible reflects his awareness of their power. He had been forced to agree to expurgate the American edition of Typee after the Presbyterian paper the Evangelist began a crusade against its condemnation of missionary activities in Hawaii. The reviews of his second book would determine whether or not he would have a literary career: After that book, Omoo, was published in 1847, he said he would “follow it up” with a third only if it succeeded (Correspondence, 87).