CONDITION: This Book in a box is in very good condition. Covers, spine, binding, and pages are unmarked and clean-cut. The box is in good condition but shows minor signs of age. The book has been in a smoke free house for the past 5 years, but we do have cats. Please examine the photos carefully as they are a part of the description of the condition. See photos for statement on type face and paper quality. The photos show some dust on the cover and are not a good shot of the front cover.

CONTENTS: See photo of Table of Contents, and the photos of the insert for details. According to Wikipedia, this is “the inaugural book of the Library of America series” containing three related stories. “Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life is…Herman Melville's first book, published in 1846, when Melville was 26 years old. Considered a classic in travel and adventure literature, the narrative is based on Melville's experiences on the island Nuku Hiva in the South Pacific Marquesas Islands in 1842, supplemented with imaginative reconstruction and research from other books. The title comes from the valley of Taipivai, once known as Taipi. Typee was Melville's most popular work during his lifetime; it made him notorious as the "man who lived among the cannibals".

    “In March 1847, Omoo [a Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas], a sequel to Typee, was published... in London, and ... in New York. Omoo is ‘a slighter but more professional book’... Typee and Omoo gave Melville overnight renown as a writer and adventurer, and he often entertained by telling stories to his admirers. …Omoo [was] 'the most strictly autobiographical of all Melville's works.' But this second book also… met with some skepticism,

   “In March 1848, Mardi [and a Voyage Thither] was published... in London, and... in New York. Nathaniel Hawthorne thought it a rich book ‘with depths here and there that compel a man to swim for his life.' According to Milder, the book began as another South Sea story but… Melville left that genre behind, first in favor of ‘a romance of the narrator Taji and the lost maiden Yillah,’ and then ‘to an allegorical voyage of the philosopher Babbalanja and his companions through the imaginary archipelago of Mardi’.”

AUTHOR: According to Wikipedia, “Herman Melville (born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period... Melville was born in New York City, the third child of a prosperous merchant whose death in 1832 left the family in dire financial straits. He took to sea in 1839 as a common sailor on a merchant ship and then on the whaler Acushnet, but he jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands... From 1853 to 1856, Melville published short fiction in magazines... In 1857, he traveled to England, toured the Near East, and published his last work of prose…in 1857. He moved to New York in 1863, eventually taking a position as a United States customs inspector. From that point, Melville focused his creative powers on poetry… In 1867, his eldest child Malcolm died at home from a self-inflicted gunshot… In 1886, his other son Stanwix died of apparent tuberculosis, and Melville retired. During his last years, he privately published two volumes of poetry, and left one volume unpublished. The novella Billy Budd was left unfinished at his death, but was published posthumously in 1924. Melville died from cardiovascular disease in 1891.”

ILLUSTRATIONS: None