Mardi: and A Voyage Thither (1849) was a commercial failure, but its quest structure, lofty language, satirical content, philosophical imperatives, and wide-ranging allusions reflect Melville's ambition to make himself a writer for all the ages. Following
Redburn: His First Voyage. Being the Sailor-Boy Confessions and Reminiscences of the Son-of-a-Gentleman, in the Merchant Service (1849) and
White-Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War (1850),
The Whale; or, Moby Dick (1851) dramatized Captain Ahab's vengeful hunt for the great white whale. Titled
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale in subsequent editions, this masterwork fuses Ishmael's comedy of workaday struggle and Ahab's tragedy of "ungodly god-like" obsession. Exalted by his achievement, Melville plunged into his tale of a naive young man who mistakes the allure of incestuous desire for the demands of ideal truth.
Pierre; or, The Ambiguities (1852) was a professional disaster from which Melville never recovered. After writing the unpublished novel "The Isle of the Cross," Melville produced such stellar magazine pieces as "Bartleby, the Scrivener. A Story of Wall-Street" (
Putnam's Monthly Magazine, March-May 1853), "The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles" (
Putnam's Monthly Magazine, March-May 1854), and "Benito Cereno" (
Putnam's Monthly Magazine, October-December 1855).
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