The Piazza Tales (1856) is a collection of short stories by American
writer Herman Melville. Before publication, five of its six stories
appeared in Putnam's Monthly during a period of productivity with
which Melville sought to achieve popular success as a writer of literary
fiction. After the failure of his novels Moby-Dick (1851) and Pierre:
or, The Ambiguities (1852), Melville struggled to find a publisher who
would accept his work, and contemporary reviews of The Piazza Tales
were negative to lukewarm at best. When Melville's work was reappraised
in the 1920s, scholars recognized these stories as not only
well-composed, but keenly focused on the dominant ethical and
sociopolitical issues of their day.
In "The Piazza," a man buys an old farmhouse with a view on the nearby
mountains. Despite his fortune, he spends his days longing for more,
wishing his home had its own piazza so he could share the beauty of the
surrounding landscape with guests. "Bartleby, the Scrivener" is a story
set at an anonymous law office on Wall Street where a mysterious clerk
suddenly refuses to do his work. Amused at first, the lawyer who
narrates the story is eventually overcome with frustration and struggles
to rid himself of the intractable Bartleby. In "Benito Cereno," a
merchant ship captain sailing around the coast of Chile chances on a
slave ship in distress. Hoping to assist its captain and crew, he boards
their ship, unwittingly stumbling on a dangerous and volatile situation.
The Piazza Tales is a collection of some of American literary icon
Herman Melville's most celebrated stories.
With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript,
this edition of Herman Melville's The Piazza Tales is a classic of
American literature reimagined for modern readers.
