The short prose Melville wrote for Harper’s and Putnam’s between 1850 and 1856 and gathered in this 1922 volume. A haunted table ticks with spirit noises, a farmer defends his enormous chimney against wife and neighbours, a ruined gentleman lives on charity, a rooster’s crow lifts a gloomy narrator, and paired sketches set London’s genial bachelors against the mill girls of New England. The essay on Hawthorne’s Mosses is included.
Essential minor Melville, wry and strange, for anyone who has read Bartleby and wants more. Download the free EPUB.