From jumping ship in the South Seas to wandering the docks of New York as a forgotten customs inspector, Herman Melville’s life was as turbulent and symbolic as his fiction. In this episode, we chart the dramatic rise and fall of the American Renaissance author who wrote Moby-Dick. Join us as we explore how a young sailor became an overnight celebrity for living among "cannibals," only to die in obscurity before being rediscovered as a literary genius of the 20th century.

Key Topics in This Episode:

• The Adventurer: We discuss Melville’s youth aboard the whaler Acushnet, his desertion in the Marquesas Islands, and the mutiny in Tahiti that inspired his early bestsellers, Typee and Omoo.
• The Hawthorne Connection: Discover how an intense f ...