Typee A Peep at Polynesian Life Author:Herman Melville Romanticized novelization of Melville's adventures in French Polynesia. — TYPEE was Herman Melville's first book. It is an idyll of four months among primitive South Sea islanders. It won him great fame during his life. — Melville always mixes his own extraordinary personal experiences with later research to produce powerful and imaginative works.... more »
TYPEE shocked its original audience with a truthful account of Polynesian tribal life. It also defined the author: caught in its glare like a fly in amber, he stands frozen before the exotic, sharply focused on it, yet forced to remain forever alien.« less