Melville - Lives Author:Elizabeth Hardwick Herman Melville’s goal as an author was to become one of the ‘thought-divers that have been diving and coming up again with bloodshot eyes since the world began.’ The source of this rather melodramatic approach to the art and craft of writing was a life that encompassed the whaling era and the Civil War and included time spent in Polynesia, wher... more »e he was flogged, fled from cannibals, joined a mutiny, and frolicked with naked islanders. The result was a body of work that ranged from popular fiction like Typee, to the dreadful gothic romance Pierre, to the classic Moby Dick. Elizabeth Hardwick provides a compelling, multifaceted portrait of Melville, who, although less successful in his own lifetime, is now regarded as one of America's greatest novelists and poets.« less