Typee, Herman Melville
Typee, Herman Melville
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Typee
A Peep at Polynesian Life

Author: Herman Melville

Series: South Seas

Narrator: Eric G. Dove

Unabridged: 10 hr 36 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/26/2018

Categories: Fiction, Classic

Synopsis

Based on Melville's real-life experiences after having jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands, his first novel was extremely popular, provoking public skepticism until the events within were corroborated by a fellow castaway. Typee is properly considered a work of fiction, as the three weeks stay on which the author based his story is here extended to four months, and the book is supplemented with imaginative reconstruction and adaptation of material from other Pacific exploration books of the time. The title refers to the province of Tai Pi Vai. Typee was Melville's most popular work during his lifetime; making him notorious as the man who lived among the cannibals.

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 bup on December 31, 2009

This is the story Herman Melville was meant to tell. I hated Billy Budd; I liked Moby Dick a lot; I loved Typee. Not coincidentally, Melville wrote this before he had met Nathaniel Hawthorne; and everything else he ever wrote after. I think Hawthorne ruined Melville as a writer. This book feels real.......more

Goodreads review by Susanna on January 18, 2009

Don't read this book if you want to lie around and dream of coconuts and natives and bare-breasted maidens. Unlike those after him (like London, Twain, and Stevenson), Melville plays with the instability of western illusions about foreign places and people. You'll have to read this between the lines......more

Goodreads review by Ian on February 15, 2016

Revision 16/2/16: I found a subversive quote and made stylistic edits. Typee is a fascinating and surprising account of South Sea islander life in the mid-nineteenth century. The story starts as an adventure tale with young sailors Tommo and Toby jumping ship as the whaler Dolly replenishes her suppli......more

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