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Herman Melville drew upon his adventurous travels on sea and land for the primary materials of his greatest fiction and poetry. Out of his experiences in the merchant service (1839), the whaling industry (1841- 1843), and the United States Navy (1843-1844) emerged the storytelling impulse that led him to compose and publish Narrative of a Four Months' Residence among the Natives of a Valley of the Marquesas Islands; or, A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846). Titled Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life. During a Four Months' Residence in a Valley of the Marquesas in subsequent editions, this wild tale of the narrator's life among a tribe of South Sea cannibals marked the high point of Melville's popularity and initiated his lifelong practice of plundering literary sources to augment the work of memory and invention. Following Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas; Being a Sequel to the "Residence in the Marquesas Islands" (1847), Melville rejected travel narrative in favor of an expansive, chaotic, allegorical romance.
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