The Literature Network - Alas, poor Herman

Alas, poor Herman

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From: The Village Voice
Date: 20020507
Author:Russo, Maria

hershel parker spots life after 'moby-dick'

Writers today who think they have it bad should consider the following headline, which appeared in the New York Day Book in 1852, upon the publication of the followup to Moby-Dick: "HERMAN MELVILLE CRAZY" When journalists were not raising the issue of Melville's sanity, they were calling Pierre "a dead failure" and an "incoherent hodge-podge," fill of indecent suggestions of quasi-incestuous love. But hostile reviewers weren't the half of Melville's problems. The second volume of Hershel Parker's gargantuan biography, which begins in 1851 after the ...

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