Billy Budd, Sailor by Herman Melville - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)

By Herman Melville

This eBook features the unabridged text of ‘Billy Budd, Sailor by Herman Melville - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)’ from the bestselling edition of ‘The Complete Works of Herman Melville’.

Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Melville includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

eBook features:
* The complete unabridged text of ‘Billy Budd, Sailor by Herman Melville - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)’
* Beautifully illustrated with images related to Melville’s works
* Individual contents table, allowing easy navigation around the eBook
* Excellent formatting of the textPlease visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Jul 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781788774932

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.

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The Complete Works of

HERMAN MELVILLE

VOLUME 11 OF 30

Billy Budd, Sailor

Parts Edition

By Delphi Classics, 2015

Version 1

COPYRIGHT

‘Billy Budd, Sailor’

Herman Melville: Parts Edition (in 30 parts)

First published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by Delphi Classics.

© Delphi Classics, 2017.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

ISBN: 978 1 78877 493 2

Delphi Classics

is an imprint of

Delphi Publishing Ltd

Hastings, East Sussex

United Kingdom

Contact: [e-mail]

www.delphiclassics.com

Herman Melville: Parts Edition

This eBook is Part 11 of the Delphi Classics edition of Herman Melville in 30 Parts. It features the unabridged text of Billy Budd, Sailor from the bestselling edition of the author’s Complete Works. Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. Our Parts Editions feature original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of Herman Melville, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

Visit here to buy the entire Parts Edition of Herman Melville or the Complete Works of Herman Melville in a single eBook.

Learn more about our Parts Edition, with free downloads, via this link or browse our most popular Parts here.

HERMAN MELVILLE

IN 30 VOLUMES

Parts Edition Contents

The Novels

1, Typee

2, Omoo

3, Mardi

4, Redburn

5, White-Jacket

6, Moby-Dick

7, Pierre

8, Isle of the Cross

9, Israel Potter

10, The Confidence-Man

11, Billy Budd, Sailor

The Short Story Collections

12, The Piazza Tales

13, The Apple-Tree Table and Other Sketches

14, Billy Budd and Other Prose Pieces

The Poetry Collections

15, Battle Pieces and Aspects of the War

16, Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land

17, John Marr and Other Sailors

18, Timoleon and Other Ventures

19, Weeds and Wildings, with a Rose or Two

20, Uncollected Poems

The Essays

21, Fragments from a Writing Desk

22, Etchings of a Whaling Cruise Review

23, Authentic Anecdotes of ‘Old Zack’

24, Mr Parkman’s Tour

25, Cooper’s New Novel

26, A Thought on Book-Binding

27, Hawthorne and His Mosses

The Letters

28, Some Personal Letters of Herman Melville by Meade Minnigerode

The Criticism

29, The Criticism

The Biography

30, Herman Melville: Man, Mariner and Mystic by Raymond Weaver

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Billy Budd, Sailor

A tale of good and evil, this novella was published posthumously in 1924. Melville began working on the manuscript in November 1888 and it was left incomplete at the time of his death in 1891.  The novella was only discovered among Melville’s papers by his first biographer, Raymond Weaver in 1919. Its editorial history is somewhat complicated, caused by poor transcription and misinterpretation of the notes which covered Melville’s manuscript. The first American edition, edited by Raymond Weaver was published as Volume XIII of the Standard Edition of Melville’s Complete Works (London: Constable and Company) appeared in 1924 and a second edition followed in 1928 which was not markedly different from the first one despite a number of variations. An edition entitled Melville’s Billy Buddy was published by Cambridge: Harvard University Press in 1948 which was edited by F. Barron Freeman and was closer to what Melville actually wrote but was still dependent on Weaver’s text. Not until 1962 when the University of Chicago Press published a version edited by Harrison Hayford and Merton M. Sealts Jr. was it considered to be the definitive text and this has been used as the source of subsequent editions. Even the title was subject to change. In early versions it was known as Billy Budd, Foretopman and later as Billy Budd (An Inside Narrative) but Melville had indicated he wished it to be known as Billy Budd, Sailor: (An Inside Narrative) which is what it became.

Based on Melville’s own experiences as a sailor, and as he explained in his dedicatory page his former sea companion Jack Chase, who was ruggedly good looking and an ideal model for Billy, perhaps the key to his narrative may well have been the scandal that arose in 1842 after an abortive mutiny aboard the U. S. Somer.  This event led to a seaborne trial, resulting in the deaths of three of the crew, who were found guilty. What made the incident notorious was that one of those who died was the son of the Secretary of War, John Spencer.

Billy Budd is a tragic, haunting, morality tale of a young, handsome, innocent sailor, Billy Budd who is pressed into the British navy where he is admired for his skills as a foretop man and is respected and loved by his fellow crew and the officers. That is except for the ship’s Master-at-arms, John Claggart, who falsely accuses him of mutiny. Billy unintentionally kills Claggart and after presenting Captain Vere, who loves Billy as a son, with a difficult moral and legal dilemma, he is tried, found guilty and sentenced to death. Military justice is upheld even though the officers and men know that Billy is innocent. The final three chapters add to the confusion created by the unfinished manuscript, full of corrections, annotations, and cancellations which reflect Melville’s self proclaimed difficulties in writing his novels and his wife’s attempt after his death to ‘correct’ his papers with the intention of carrying out what she thought were his wishes.

Since it was published in 1924, Billy Budd, Sailor (The Inside Narrative) has been the subject of critical controversy and re-evaluations and is now considered by many to be a masterpiece. It has been the subject of a number of films and Benjamin Britten, a major 20th century English composer, produced an operatic version in 1951, which was well received.

Opening leaf manuscript

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

The 1962 film adaptation

BILLY BUDD, SAILOR

Chapter 1

In the time before steamships, or then more frequently than now, a stroller along the docks of any considerable sea-port would occasionally have his attention arrested by a group of bronzed mariners, man-of-war’s men or merchant-sailors in holiday attire ashore on liberty. In certain instances they would flank, or, like a body-guard quite surround some superior figure of their own class, moving along with them like Aldebaran among the lesser lights of his constellation. That signal object was the Handsome Sailor of the less prosaic time alike of the military and merchant navies. With no perceptible trace of the vainglorious about him, rather with the off-hand unaffectedness of natural regality, he seemed to accept the spontaneous homage of his shipmates.

A somewhat remarkable instance recurs to me. In Liverpool, now half a century ago, I saw under the shadow of the great dingy street-wall of Prince’s Dock (an obstruction long since removed) a common sailor, so intensely black that he must needs have been a native African of the unadulterate blood of Ham. A symmetric figure much above the average height. The two ends of a gay silk handkerchief thrown loose about the neck danced upon the displayed ebony of his chest; in his ears were big hoops of gold, and a Scotch Highland bonnet with a tartan band set off his shapely head. It was a hot noon in July; and his face, lustrous with perspiration, beamed with barbaric good humor. In jovial sallies right and left, his white teeth flashing into he rollicked along, the centre of a company of his shipmates. These were made up of such an assortment of tribes and complexions as would have well fitted them to be marched up by Anacharsis Cloots before the bar of the first French Assembly as Representatives of the Human Race. At each spontaneous tribute rendered by the wayfarers to this black pagod of a fellow--the tribute of a pause and stare, and less frequent an exclamation,--the motley retinue showed that they took that sort of pride in the evoker of it which the Assyrian priests doubtless showed for their grand sculptured Bull when the faithful prostrated themselves.

To return. If in some cases a bit of a nautical Murat in setting forth his person ashore, the Handsome Sailor of the period in question evinced nothing of the dandified Billy-be-Damn, an amusing character all but extinct now, but occasionally to be encountered, and in a form yet more amusing than the original, at the tiller of the boats on the tempestuous Erie Canal or, more likely, vaporing in the groggeries along the tow-path. Invariably a proficient