Literature Network » Herman Melville

"The hint of style": Byron, John Hookham Frere, and Melville's Marginalia in William Tennant's Anster Fair.(Critical essay)

Content courtesy of

From: Leviathan
Date: 20070601
Author:Dewey, Colin D.

During Allan Melvill's visit to Scotland, the Reverend Robert Swan presented Melvill, soon to become Herman Melville's father, with a copy of Anster Fair: A Poem (1812), by the scholar and poet William Tennant (1784-1848), resident of Anstruther, in county Fife, the Melville ancestral home (see Fig. 1). The gift inscription is dated "May 20th 1818." Decades later, and opposite his father's name, Melville unobtrusively recorded on the verso of the title page the autograph "Herman Melville/N.Y. 1875." A modern reader of Anster Fair will find passages reminiscent of Melville's own ...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Other Articles on Herman Melville

About Our Articles: We've partnered with Highbeam Research to provide these article excerpts for your research needs. However, due to copyright laws, we cannot publish the whole article. To view these articles in full length you'll need to use the link above to access the free trial at Highbeam.