The Complete Shorter Fiction

Resumen del libro

Herman Melville (1819-91) brought as much genius to the smaller-scale literary forms as he did to the full-blown novel: his poems and the short stories and novellas collected in this volume reveal a deftness and a delicacy of touch that is in some ways even more impressive than the massive, tectonic passions of Moby-Dick. In a story like "Bartleby, the Scrivener" -- one of the very few perfect representatives of the form in the English language -- he displayed an unflinching precision and insight and empathy in his depiction of the drastically alienated inner life of the title character. In "Benito Cereno," he addressed the great racial dilemmas of the nineteenth century with a profound, almost surreal imaginative clarity. And in Billy, Budd, Sailor, the masterpiece of his last years, he fused the knowledge and craft gained from a lifetime's magnificent work into a pure, stark, flawlessly composed tale of innocence betrayed and destroyed. Melville is justly honored for the epic sweep of his mind, but his lyricism, his skill in rendering the minute, the particular, the local, was equally sublime.

Biografía del autor

x{0026}lt;P x{0026}lt;B Herman Mellvillex{0026}lt;/B (Nova York, 1819-1891) ha estat considerat pels estudiosos i la crítica com un dels autors més importants de la literatura universal, un escriptor de fred instint i sorpreses constants a cada pàgina. La seva capacitat narrativa i la profunditat psicològica dels seus personatges en fan un clàssic imprescindible que, malgrat el pas del temps, segueix mantenint la frescor, la lucidesa i la qualitat literària que han seduït generacions de lectors.x{0026}lt;/P