Billy Budd, Sailor

Name: Billy Budd, Sailor
Brand: Naxos
Availability: InStock
Author: Herman Melville
ISBN: 9789629545581

Author: Herman Melville

Narrator: William Roberts

Unabridged: 3 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Naxos

Published: 07/01/2003

Categories: Fiction, Classic

Synopsis

A maritime classic from the master pen of Herman Melville. Written some forty years after Moby Dick, Melville’s Billy Budd is a moving tale of good versus evil. Set aboard a British navy ship at the end of the eighteenth century, a young, innocent sailor’s charm and good nature put the men around him at ease. Ship-life agreed with Billy. He made friends quickly and was well liked, which infuriated John Claggart, the ship’s cold-blooded superior officer. Mutiny was a continual threat greatly feared by naval officers. Even minor offences were dealt with harshly to keep crews in their place – regardless of whether the accused was guilty or innocent. The envious Master-at-Arms becomes obsessed with the destruction of the ‘Handsome Sailor’ and torments the young man until his false accusations lead to an eventual charge of treason against Billy.

About Herman Melville

Herman Melville (1819–1891) was an American novelist, short-story writer, essayist, and poet who is often classified as part of dark romanticism. He is best known for his novel Moby Dick and novella Billy Budd, the latter which was published posthumously. His first three books gained much attention, the first becoming a bestseller, but after a fast-blooming literary success in the late 1840s, his popularity declined precipitously in the mid-1850s and never recovered during his lifetime. When he died, he was almost completely forgotten. It was not until the "Melville Revival" in the early twentieth century that his work won recognition, most notably Moby Dick, which was hailed as one of the chief literary masterpieces of both American and world literature.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Roy on June 29, 2021

For me, Moby Dick is compelling for its flaws as much as its genius. It is somehow both brilliant and overly-ambitious. One can feel, on every page, Melville straining to write something Miltonic, Shakespearean, even Biblical in its reach and power. But like some over-educated Icarus, his soaring fl......more

Goodreads review by Jonathan on August 19, 2016

This, ladies and gents, is what we call round these parts a darn good sentence: "By the side of pebbly waters--waters the cheerier for their solitude; beneath swaying fir-boughs, petted by no season, but still green in all, on I journeyed--my horse and I; on, by an old saw-mill, bound down and hushe......more

Goodreads review by Jonfaith on May 01, 2016

Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity. Billy and Bartleby are old friends, portraits of bejeweled philosophy. Strange as it may appear, the selection which punched me in the jaw was Cock-A-Dood......more

Goodreads review by Bob on January 01, 2018

Sailors' Favorite Framed, Takes Rap *BILLY BUDD, a classic tale by America's Herman Melville, was written 40 years after his burst of creative energy. Melville still possessed the feeling for a good story, but he wrote it in a language so ornate and (to our modern eyes) stilted, that one can hardly a......more

Goodreads review by Christine on September 29, 2020

One of Melville's finest. I like to think it took his whole life to write this short piece because it condenses his finest diction, symbolism, and commentary on human nature. By story’s end, Melville’s descriptions have created a singular character of innocence, one he calls a “childman” of simple-m......more