Herman Melville: Among the Magazines

'Herman Melville: Among the Magazines' returns one of America’s most famous writers to the hubbub of the mid-nineteenth century publishing industry.

Herman Melville struggled to survive as a failing novelist between 1853 and 1856. Working exclusively for magazines, he wrote stories that earnt him more money than he received from the combined sales of his best-known novels, Moby-Dick, Pierre, and The Confidence-Man.  

Graham Thompson examines this magazine work in its original publication context and explores what it meant to be a magazine writer in the 1850s. The book discovers a new Melville enmeshed with forgotten materials, editors, and literary traditions. He reveals how Melville responded innovatively to the demands of magazine writing and reinvented literary traditions to help create the modern short story. 

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