The Piazza Tales

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The Piazza Tales is a collection of short stories by Herman Melville, which he published with Dix & Edwards in 1856 in the United States. A British edition followed shortly afterwards. Except for the title story, "The Piazza," all of the stories had appeared in Putnam's Monthly the years before. It was the only such collection published during Melville's lifetime.[1] Originally, Melville had intended to entitle the volume Benito Cereno and Other Sketches,[2] but it was The Encantadas, his sketches of the Galápagos Islands, that garnered the most attention from critics.[3] Even though The Piazza Tales received largely favorable reviews, it did not sell well enough to get Melville out of his financial straights.[4][5]

Contents

[edit] Contents

  1. "The Piazza"
  2. "Bartleby the Scrivener" (published in Putnam's November and December 1853)
  3. "Benito Cereno" (published in Putnam's October, November and December 1855)
  4. "The Lightning-Rod Man" (published in Putnam's August 1854)
  5. "The Encantadas or Enchanted Isles" (published in Putnam's March, April, and May 1854)
  6. "The Bell-Tower" (published in Putnam's August 1855)

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Rollyson and Paddock, p. 157
  2. ^ Rollyson and Paddock, p. 157
  3. ^ Branch, p. 35
  4. ^ Robertson-Laurant, p. 358.
  5. ^ Parker p. 283ff extensively discusses the contemporary reviews and how ineffective they ultimately proved to be.

[edit] References

  • Branch, Watson G. Herman Melville, the Critical Heritage. London; Boston: Routledge & K. Paul, 1974. ISBN 0-7100-7774-2
  • Parker, Hershel. Herman Melville: A Biography. 2 vols. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-8018-5428-8
  • Robertson-Lorant, Laurie. Melville: A Biography. New York: Clarkson Potter/Publishers, 1995. ISBN 0-517-59314-9
  • Rollyson, Carl E., and Lisa Olson Paddock. Herman Melville a to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. Facts on File Library of American Literature. New York: Facts on File, 2001. ISBN 0-8160-3851-1.

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Works by Herman Melville
Novels:
Short story collections:
The Piazza Tales (1856)
Short stories:
"The Piazza" · "Bartleby, the Scrivener" · "Benito Cereno" · "The Lightning-Rod Man" · "The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles" · "The Bell-Tower" (all 1856)

Uncollected : "Cock-A-Doodle-Doo!" (1853)  · "Poor Man's Pudding and Rich Man's Crumbs" (1854)  · "The Happy Failure" (1854)  · "The Fiddler" (1854)  · "The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids" (1855)  · "Jimmy Rose" (1855)  · "The 'Gees" (1856)  · "I and My Chimney" (1856)  · "The Apple-Tree Table" (1856)

Unpublished in Melville's lifetime : "The Two Temples"  · "Daniel Orme"
Poetry:
Battle Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866)  · Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land (1876)  · John Marr and Other Sailors (1888)  · Timoleon (1891)  · Weeds and Wildings, and a Rose or Two (1924)
Uncollected/unpublished poems: "Epistle to Daniel Shepherd" · "Inscription for the Slain at Fredericksburgh" · "The Admiral of the White" · "To Tom" · "Suggested by the Ruins of a Mountain-temple in Arcadia" · "Puzzlement" · "The Continents" · "The Dust-Layers" · "A Rail Road Cutting near Alexandria in 1855" · "A Reasonable Constitution" · "Rammon" · "A Ditty of Aristippus" · "In a Nutshell" · "Adieu"