Herman Melville
The Contemporary Reviews

"An invaluable reference that reprints virtually all known contemporary reviews of Herman Melville's (1819-1891) writings from the 1840s until his death. Many of the reviews are reprinted from relatively inaccessible contemporary newspapers and periodicals. These materials document the responses of reviewers to specific works and chart the course of Melville's 19th-century reputation as a travel writer, romance writer, short-story writer, and poet." Book News

"This invaluable compilation reprints virtually all the known reviews of Melville's writings from the 1840s until his death in 1891. Most of the reviews are reprinted from hard-to-locate newspapers and periodicals, unavailable (except with great difficulty and expense) to most students of nineteenth-century literary culture, who can benefit mightily from seeing how Melville's contemporaries responded to his work." Nineteenth-Century Literature