Wellingborough Redburn, son of a ruined New York family, sets out with his brother’s shooting-jacket and his late father’s guidebook and ships as a boy aboard a merchantman bound for Liverpool. Mocked by the crew and sick at sea, he learns the work of the ship, then walks a Liverpool of docks and slums very different from the city in his father’s book.
Melville’s 1849 novel, drawn from his own first voyage, is a tender portrait of innocence meeting the world. Download the free EPUB.