Showing results by author "Herman Melville" in All Categories

These treasured stories from the most influential authors of the 19th and early 20th centuries are selected for their literary importance as well as their dramatic, oral qualities. Listen to these 10 unabridged classics by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, O. Henry, and Willa Cather.

"The Encantadas" or "Enchanted Isles" is a novella by American author Herman Melville. First published in Putnam's Magazine in 1854, it consists of ten philosophical "Sketches" on the Encantadas, or Galápagos Islands. It was collected in "The Piazza Tales" in 1856. "The Encantadas" was a success with the critics, but it did not help Melville out of his financial troubles.

Presented as narratives of his own South Sea experiences, Melville's first two books had roused incredulity in many readers. Their disbelief, he declared, had been "the main inducement" in altering his plan for his third book, 'Mardi: and a Voyage Thither' (1849). Melville wanted to exploit the "rich poetical material" of Polynesia and also to escape feeling "irked, cramped, & fettered" by a narrative of facts. "I began to feel ... a longing to plume my pinions for a flight," he told his English publisher.

The sailor Ishmael gets himself hired on the "Pequod" for a whaling voyage, and tells the story of an astounding journey and of the obsessed Captain...

On one level...Melville’s tale is an historical adventure telling the story of life aboard ship shortly after the mutiny at Spithead in 1797. Billy is taken from a homeward bound merchantman to serve on the ‘Seventy Four’ HMS Indomitable. He falls foul of Claggart, the ‘Master at Arms’, and the final confrontation results in death. Billy becomes an unwilling martyr - what passes for justice must be implemented because of the rebellious climate of the time.

Wellingborough Redburn is a fifteen-year-old from the state of New York, with only one dream to run away to sea. However, when he does fulfil this long-held fantasy, he quickly finds that reality as a cabin boy is far harsher than he ever imagined. Mocked by the crew on board the Highlander for his weakness and bullied by the vicious and merciless sailor Jackson, Wellingborough must struggle to endure the long journey from New York to Liverpool.

Captain Ahab's quest for the white whale is a timeless epic - a thrilling tale of vengeance and obsession, and a searing parable about humanity lost in a universe of moral ambiguity.Inspired by true events, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is a work of astonishing psychological depth.It is perhaps the greatest sea story ever told and one of the great classics of literature.'Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee...'

"Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street" is a short story by Herman Melville. The story first appeared, anonymously, in Putnam's Magazine in two parts. The first part appeared in November 1853, with the conclusion published in December 1853. It was reprinted in Melville's The Piazza Tales in 1856 with minor textual alterations. The work is said to have been inspired, in part, by Melville's reading of Emerson, and some have pointed to specific parallels to Emerson's essay, "The Transcendentalist."View our full collection of podcasts at our website: https://www.solgoodmedia.com or ...

Moby Dick dello scrittore americano Herman Melville è oggi considerato uno dei più importanti libri della letteratura mondiale...

A versão em áudio de Moby Dick é marcada por uma trilha sonora intensa, desenvolvida por Sandra Branca a partir de um tema original de Richard Wagner. Vários efeitos sonoros ajudam a criar o ambiente de insegurança e trabalho duro da vida no mar, que é intensificado pela ira do capitão Acab em busca de fazer sua vingança contra Moby Dick. Os efeitos sonoros acompanham o crescendo de emoções na perseguição cega e desenfreada que o capitão impõe aos seus subordinados. Vozes.

Tommo has been aboard a whaling ship for six grueling months when he decides, with his friend Toby, to escape and hide on a wild island. They are not alone. The island is home to a tribe called the Typees known for being cannibals. But when Tommo breaks his leg, they can no longer avoid the valley the Typees call home. They venture down into the tribe’s territory, but instead of violence, the Typees greet them happily with food and shelter. Tommo and Toby quickly become accustomed to life in the tribe and even prefer aspects of island life to their so-called “civilized” society.

"Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street" is a short story by the American writer Herman Melville, first serialized anonymously in two parts in the November and December 1853 issues of Putnam's Magazine, and reprinted with minor textual alterations in his The Piazza Tales in 1856. A Wall Street lawyer hires a new clerk who, after an initial bout of hard work, refuses to make copy and any other task required of him, with the words "I would prefer not to".

SEA STORIES tells the entire tale. You will find excerpts of some of the most famous nautical stories of all time. Most of us have passed through a period of life during which we have ardently longed to be, if not actually a rover, a buccaneer, or a pirate, at least and really a sailor!

Un abogado que tiene su oficina en Wall Street narra la historia de Bartleby, un peculiar escribiente, quien un día, de repente, deja de escribir amparándose en su famosa fórmula: "Preferiría no hacerlo". Nadie sabe de dónde viene este escribiente, prefiere no decirlo, y su futuro es incierto pues prefiere no hacer nada que altere su situación. El abogado, desconcertado, no sabe cómo actuar ante esta rebeldía, pero al mismo tiempo se siente atraído por tal misteriosa actitud. Su compasión hacia el desobediente escribiente, hace de este personaje un ser tan extraño como el propio Bartleby.

The wilderness--forest, desert, glacier, jungle--has been the scene of the past century's most exciting stories, inspiring many of its greatest writers, including Jack London, Norman Maclean, Evelyn Waugh, Redmond O'Hanlon, Sir Wilfred Thesiger, H.M. Tomlinson and Algernon Blackwood. Selections from these authors' most gripping works are delivered by equally compelling narration producing an audiobook experience ideal for people who are fascinated by the beauty, insight and danger that awaits us all in the wild!

Follow the sound of crashing waves, howling winds, and tolling bells to tales of treason and vengeance, beasts and plague, haunted houses and curses, mystery and murder. These vintage chillers, written by Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Charles Dickens, Emily Bronte, Alexandre Dumas, and Guy de Maupassant, are brought to life by William Johnstone, Frank Lovejoy, Mercedes McCambridge, Eleanor Audley, Lon Clark, and more.

Initially dismissed as "a dead failure" and "a bad book," and declined by Melville's British publisher, "Pierre" has since struck critics as modern in its psychological probings and literary technique fit, as Carl Van Vechten said in 1922, to be ranked with "The Golden Bowl", "Women in Love", and "Ulysses". None of Melville's other "secondary" works has so regularly been acknowledged by its most thorough critics as a work of genuine grandeur, however flawed.

"It is the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships' cables and hawsers. A Polar wind blows through it, and birds of prey hover over it." So Melville wrote of his masterpiece, one of the greatest works of imagination in literary history. In part, Moby-Dick is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. But more than just a novel of adventure, more than an encyclopaedia of whaling lore and legend, the book can be seen as part of its author's lifelong meditation on America.

Billy Budd, Sailor is a classic confrontation between good and evil, and the story of an innocent young man unable to defend himself against a wrongful accusation.

Esta obra maestra de la literatura norteamericana, narra la historia de un hombre -Ajab- dominado por una obsesión: vengarse de Moby Dick, la ballena blanca que le arrebató una pierna. Guiado por su anhelo de venganza, Ahab pretende capturar a la ballena, pero ésta no será presa fácil.