The Piazza Tales (1856) is a collection of short stories by American writer Herman Melville. Before publication, five of its six stories appeared in Putnam's Monthly during a period of productivity with which Melville sought to achieve popular success as a writer of literary fiction. After the failure of his novels Moby-Dick (1851) and Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (1852), Melville struggled to find a publisher who would accept his work, and contemporary...

Obra cumbre de las letras universales, Moby Dick es una de las mayores obras escritas en lengua inglesa. La novela narra la aventura épica de la caza del gran cachalote blanco que emprenden los marineros del Pequod, comandados por el legendario Ahab, un obstinado y tiránico capitán de Nantuket, puerto célebre de la caza ballenera, quien, empecinado en tomar venganza del monstruo que lo mutiló años atrás, conduce a toda su tripulación a un...

Don Benito faltered; then, like some somnambulist suddenly interfered with, vacantly stared at his visitor, and ended by looking down on the deck. He maintained this posture so long, that Captain Delano, almost equally disconcerted, and involuntarily almost as rude, turned suddenly from him, walking forward to accost one of the Spanish seamen for the desired information. But he had hardly gone five paces, when with a sort of eagerness Don Benito invited...

El vendedor de pararrayos es un cuento poco conocido de Herman Melville, autor reconocido por su biblico Moby Dick. El cuento se ambienta en medio de una tormenta cuando llama a la puerta de una casa un vendedor de pararrayos. En el breve relato bajo la lluvia y los relámpagos se inicia una lucha simbólica entre el bien y el mal, la religión y la ciencia entre dos personajes anclados a sus creencias.
La obra fue publicada en una recopilación

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An aging lawyer hires a new copyist to help with his firm's workload, and at first he finds himself pleased with his new employee. Bartleby is quiet, efficient and he doesn't display any of the loud eccentricities of the firm's other two copyists, Nippers and Turkey. But one day, when the lawyer asks Bartleby if he will help him compare copies, Bartleby simply replies, "I would prefer not to." As time goes by and Bartleby's strange refusals multiply,...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'Struck dead by an angel of God! Yet the angel must hang!' It is the end of the eighteenth century, and the navy recruits the eponymous hero - the 'Handsome Sailor' - to its fleet. Accused of mutinous behaviour, Billy Budd is forced to defend himself, but his fearful, silent response soon gives way to a terrible act of violence. The consequences are disastrous, and...

Based on Melville's real-life experiences after having jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands, his first novel was extremely popular, provoking public skepticism until the events within were corroborated by a fellow castaway. Typee is properly considered a work of fiction, as the three week stay on which the author based his story is here extended to four months, and the book is supplemented with imaginative reconstruction and adaptation of material...

"Es lunes, aunque no importa –podría ser cualquier otro día laborable–. El abogado y propietario de la oficina, por el bien de todos, designa a cada uno de sus subalternos las tareas que hay que resolver. Tres sencillas palabras, pronunciadas por el último empleado contratado, harán que, desde esos despachos, el mundo comience a tambalearse. Con su «preferiría no hacerlo», Bartleby deja perplejo a todo aquel incapaz de ver más allá de...

Typee (A Peep at Polynesian Life) è il primo libro dello scrittore statunitense Herman Melville, apparso nel 1846. Si tratta di un lavoro in parte autobiografico.

Il narratore, Tom, diserta dalla baleniera Dolly - in cui si trovava imbarcato da sei mesi - assieme all'amico Toby, durante una fermata intermedia nella baia di Nuku Hiva nell'arcipelago delle Isole Marchesi nell'Oceano Pacifico; i due cercano rifugio nell'entroterra tra gli

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Melville’s pen ranges far and wide in this collection of his short stories and novellas, with subjects including a faraway mountain lodge, a magnificent rooster, a haunted table, and of course the inimitable scrivener Bartleby, whose tale is now viewed as one of the great English short stories. While his earlier novels had been well received, by this point in his career his star

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