Moby Dick is one of the greatest English works. Herman Melville, did not, in fact, get any second chance during his lifetime. My understanding is that except fo

Moby Dick is one of the greatest English works. Herman Melville, did not, in fact, get any second chance during his lifetime. My understanding is that except for "Bartleby the Scrivener", the reception for Moby Dick embittered him into not trying much afterwards. Bartleby might be autobiographical, that Melville "would prefer not to" attempt any works from then on. His obituary in the New York Times is telling (Oct 2 1891) [1] - he was already considered an obscure trivia at the time. (The Sept 29 obituary notice actually misspelt Moby Dick.) "There has died and been buried in this city, during the current week, at an advanced age, a man who is so little known, even by name, to the generation now in the vigor of life that only one newspaper contained an obituary account of him, and this was but of three or four lines. Yet forty years ago the appearance of a new book by Herman Melville was esteemed a literary event, not only throughout his own country, but so far as the English-speaking race extended." Melville's revival came in 1919, long afterwards. [1] http://www.melville.org/hmobit.htm http://www.melville.org/hmobit.htm