Redburn (Modern Library Classics (Sagebrush)) [School & Library Binding]

Herman Melville (Author), Elizabeth Hardwick (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2002 | Series: Modern Library Classics (Sagebrush)

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Redburn, recalling the cruel memories of [Melville’s] youth, was the first bitter cry of his maturity. . . . The book has the wry humour of the grown man. . . . Redburn was a victory.” —Lewis Mumford


From the Trade Paperback edition. --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

From the Inside Flap

Drawn from Melville?s own adolescent experience aboard a merchant ship, Redburn charts the coming-of-age of Wellingborough Redburn, a young innocent who embarks on a crossing to Liverpool together with a roguish crew. Once in Liverpool, Redburn encounters the squalid conditions of the city and meets Harry Bolton, a bereft and damaged soul, who takes him on a tour of London that includes a scene of rococo decadence unlike anything else in Melville?s fiction. In her Introduction, Elizabeth Hardwick writes, ?Redburn is rich in masterful portraits?a gallery of wild colors, pretensions and falsehoods, fleeting associations of unexpected tenderness. . . . Redburn is not a document; it is a work of art by the unexpected genius of a sailor, Herman Melville.?

This Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the text of the first American edition of 1849. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• School & Library Binding
• Publisher: San Val (September 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1417619260
• ISBN-13: 978-1417619269
• Shipping Information: View shipping rates and policies
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A deep look at Melville's heart, July 10, 2001

By 

Henry Ehrman (NY, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Redburn: His First Voyage, Being the Sailor-Boy, Confessions and Reminiscences of the Son-of-a-Gentleman, In the Merchant Service (Penguin English Library) (Paperback)

There are those who read Moby-Dick and say they love it because they're supposed to, because it's marked as a classic American novel; and then there are those who love Moby-Dick because its miraculous prose, its Shakespearean characters and its spirit truly get inside them. Redburn is for the second group: any real fan of Melville's unique philosophy and thorough mastery of style will love this book. Redburn is, to be sure, no Moby-Dick -- it has none of the epic quality of that crowning jewel. But all of Melville's trademarks are here, in a plot which transcends its simple outline -- a boy from a formerly rich, now bankrupt family joins the crew of a merchant ship sailing to Liverpool and comes of age -- to reach the realm of genius. The poetically beautiful imagery and sparkling wit juxtaposed with profound melancholy jump out at the reader. But even more importantly, Redburn opens up a unique window on Herman Melville's soul. Elizabeth Hardwick, in her recent biography of Melville (which I also highly recommend), calls this his most personal work, and she's right -- where later works like Moby-Dick and Billy Budd hid Melville's real experiences behind an obscuring (if brilliant) curtain of fiction and the earliest novels like Typee and Omoo lacked depth in their rollickingly faithful accounts of Melville's sojourns among the Polynesians, Redburn has just the right balance of fact and fiction. It is in many ways a meditation on the author's once-illustrious father -- Allan Melville, who, just like Walter Redburn (the narrator's father) lost all his money and respect -- but it is equally a series of revelations about his youthful mind as he mulls over issues of time, the generational gap and social change. Read Redburn for a real glimpse of the man who would be the greatest American novelist.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars His First Voyage, August 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Redburn: His First Voyage, Being the Sailor-Boy, Confessions and Reminiscences of the Son-of-a-Gentleman, In the Merchant Service (Penguin English Library) (Paperback)

"Redburn" is a fantastic story. It is complex, funny and mysterious. Using Wellingborough Redburn as his persona and narrator, Melville writes of his first voyage overseas, when as a young man of 19 he signs on as a common seaman on board the "Highlander", a merchant ship bount for Liverpool, England. In the first few chapters Redburn seems to be mocking himself, using a tongue-in-cheek tone as he describes his romantic notions of sailing to distant lands and his ineptitude as a sailor during his first weeks at sea. The crew mocks him because he is such a poor seaman; they humiliate and tease him. As the story evolves, Redburn becomes more objective and contemplative. He becomes an acute observer in recording the harshness of a sailor's life and in describing the individual characteristics of the Highlander's crew, especially one Jackson, a malignant and powerful sailor who dominates the crew with his relentless venom.

In Liverpool, Redburn meets Harry Bolton, a young man who attracts and fascinates him. Harry is obviously a gentleman, and although he is muscular and well built, he exudes a feminine charm. Harry is evasive about his past. Harry intrigues Redburn. Redburn admires Harry although he suspects him of an indefinable evil. Despite his misgivings about Harry, Redburn helps him get a job on the Highlander which, with 500 immigrants who board the ship in Liverpool embarks for America. Melville, through his alter ego, Redburn, tells of the harrowing problems on board the Highlander on the voyage back to America. He describes his strange, ongoing friendship with Harry who proves to be a terrible sailor. And he describes in penetrating detail the awful, slow death of Jackson and its effect on the crew.

Some Melville aficionados have implied that Melville reveals homosexual longings in describing Harry Bolton and his attraction to him. But I feel that Melville, like the poet he is, transcends gender when he focuses on the sensuous nature of form, whether ugly or beautiful. "Redburn" is an exalting story of a young man's first voyage. It involves the reader both physically and spiritually.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Parzifal at sea and abroad, August 3, 2008

By 

H. Schneider "Hamlet" (Pandistan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Redburn: His First Voyage, Being the Sailor-Boy, Confessions and Reminiscences of the Son-of-a-Gentleman, In the Merchant Service (Penguin English Library) (Paperback)

A tough initiation to sea life for the frustrated and angry young man from the suddenly impoverished family with the formerly wealthy background. His father has died, leaving the mother and several kids without means. Wealthy aunts and uncles do little.
He goes to sea, but starts on a wrong foot. The 'Highlander' takes him from New York to Liverpool as a 'boy', but based on the misunderstanding that he is wealthy and that his family is looking after him. Hence he has the whole crew against him.
He is excessively ill positioned: a non-drinker and non-smoker, a church-goer and book-reader, overdressed but without the means and the know-how to bring the right clothes and shoes, overeducated, but w/o any sea knowledge, and with conceipts of being a 'gentleman', who might be expected to call on the captain, underequipped (not even the cup and plate for taking his coffee and food rations), and with no instinct for the right kind of etiquette in the circumstances.
This is possibly Melville's most personal book, nearest the 'real' experience, much more so than the South Sea adventures, which stay strictly away from the inner world of the man. He exposes his own ridiculousness in a merciless way. He then talks down his literary effort as just work for money, but since when was that a proof of low quality?
Appropriately I started reading this treasure on August 1; which however was not a sheer coincidence, rather I read in my calendar that it was HM's birthday, so I thought, what better starting point for volume 2 of the LoA Melville.
Considering that this book was first published in 1849, one has to pay attention to the language. Though he was not entirely free from the mannerisms of the epoch, all in all the freshness and directness of the narration is overwhelming. The narrator has the lovely name Wellingborough Redburn, and he is clearly to a large extent modelled on young Melville himself.
As a typical American of his time, he thinks, like a majority would probably still think today , that Hamburg is in Holland, if at all anywhere outside the Golden Arches.
Young Redburn tries to read the Wealth of Nations, given him by his brother's friend before departure; this turns out to be a particularly lost cause. The encounter fails. It is misplaced in social strata as well as in age group. Maybe good for a Caribbean Cruise, hardly for a North Atlantic Crossing in mid 19th century.
While the ship docks in Liverpool, the young man spends some spare time looking around, and one gets the impression that it helps him growing up. He meets a new friend, the mysterious and tragic Harry, who remains a companion during the stay in England and the return trip.
The return is dominated by tragedy at sea. The Highlander takes a load of Irish emigrants to New York, boarding under lamentable conditions. When the ship runs into prolonged bad weather, there is famine and a cholera epidemic on board, with not a few casualties.
Melville's comments on the way this emigration business is done, together with his observations on poverty in England (reminiscent of Engels and Dickens) and his few comments on slavery and race relations make him sound far ahead of his time in terms of social enlightenment.