

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
Publisher: Dreamscape Media
Published: 06/26/2018
Author: Herman Melville
Series: South Seas
Narrator: Eric G. Dove
Unabridged: 10 hr 36 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Dreamscape Media
Published: 06/26/2018
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.
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
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
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