Redburn

Description

Drawn from Melville's own adolescent experience aboard a merchant ship, "Redburn" charts the coming-of-age of Wellingborough Redburn, a young innocent who embarks on a crossing to Liverpool together with a roguish crew. Once in Liverpool, Redburn encounters the squalid conditions of the city and meets Harry Bolton, a bereft and damaged soul, who takes him on a tour of London that includes a scene of rococo decadence unlike anything else in Melville's fiction. In her Introduction, Elizabeth Hardwick writes, ""Redburn" is rich in masterful portraits--a gallery of wild colors, pretensions and falsehoods, fleeting associations of unexpected tenderness. . . . "Redburn" is not a document; it is a work of art by the unexpected genius of a sailor, Herman Melville." This Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the text of the first American edition of 1849.

Reviews

""Redburn", recalling the cruel memories of [Melville's] youth, was the first bitter cry of his maturity. . . . The book has the wry humour of the grown man. . . . Redburn was a victory." --Lewis Mumford

Author description

Elizabeth Hardwick is the author of many books and essays, including "American Fictions" (available from Modern Library Paperbacks) and "Herman Melville." She lives in New York City.