Benito Cereno

By Herman Melville

"What has cast such a shadow upon you?"
"The Negro."

With its intense mix of mystery, adventure, and a surprise ending, Benito Cereno at first seems merely a provocative example from the genre Herman Melville created with his early best-selling novels of the sea. However, most Melville scholars consider it his most sophisticated work, and many, such as novelist Ralph Ellison, have hailed it as the most piercing look at slavery in all of American literature.

Based on a real life incident—the character names remain unchanged—Benito Cereno tells what happens when an American merchant ship comes upon a mysterious Spanish ship where the nearly all-black crew and their white captain are starving and yet hostile to offers of help. Melville's most focused political work, it is rife with allusions (a ship named after Santo Domingo, site of the slave revolt led by Toussaint L'Ouverture), analogies (does the good-hearted yet obtuse American captain refer to the American character itself?), and mirroring images that deepen our reflections on human oppression and its resultant depravities.

It is, in short, a multi-layered masterpiece that rewards repeated readings, and deepens our appreciation of Melville's genius.

The Art of The Novella Series

Too short to be a novel, too long to be a short story, the novella is generally unrecognized by academics and publishers. Nonetheless, it is a form beloved and practiced by literature's greatest writers. In the Art Of The Novella series, Melville House celebrates this renegade art form and its practitioners with titles that are, in many instances, presented in book form for the first time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jun 14, 2011
• ISBN: 9781612190846

Herman Melville

Herman Melville was an American novelist, essayist, short story writer and poet. His most notable work, Moby Dick, is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.

Reviews for Benito Cereno

[jonfaith · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity.

Billy and Bartleby are old friends, portraits of bejeweled philosophy. Strange as it may appear, the selection which punched me in the jaw was Cock-A-Doodle-Do: a tale told by a fellow traveler (he drinks porter and reads Rabelais) about a magical fowl which is a fount of bliss, an actual agent of earthly happiness.

[bookomaniac-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Magnifieke verhalenbundel. Ongelofelijk beklemmende sfeer, erg verwant aan Poe en in sommige opzichten vooruitlopend op Kafka. Vooral Benito Cereno is adembenemend.

[jonri-4 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I read Billy Budd for a book club I belong to. (I didn't read the other stories.) I found it incredibly slow going. I wouldn't even attempt to read it without access to Wikipedia or some other such source. Especially at the beginning, it makes a lot of cultural references with which I was completely unacquainted, e.g., Anacharis Cloots, Kaspar Hauser and Titus Oates. This made the meaning of some passages incomprehensible without some research.The characters are all stereotypes. I found the plot unrealistic. I also found it just plain exasperating that we are not told what Vere said to Budd after Budd was condemned to death.

[maxernst11 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Magnifieke verhalenbundel. Ongelofelijk beklemmende sfeer, erg verwant aan Poe en in sommige opzichten vooruitlopend op Kafka. Vooral Benito Cereno is adembenemend.

[gordsellar_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I happened upon this in a used bookshop in Yongsan station, in Seoul, just as I was working on a story called "Ogallala" that has more than one nod in the direction of the novella "Benito Cereno" which is in this collection. So I figured that was a hint from the universe, and bought it so I could reread Benito Cereno before finishing my revision.

[jerry2book-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Good v Evil and the law. Also, not a bad movie with Peter Ustinov.

[nikkles_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I had to read Billy Budd for school. That is not really a deal breaker for me, but I just did not get the point of the story and it really seems like it is suppose to have a point.

[tezz_4 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Very difficult story to read, with Melville often distracted from the task at hand. However, if you can persevere the fabulous story manages to shine through the verbose prose.