HERMAN MELVILLE'S name stands amongst the most famous writers of modern literature. His master piece, Moby Dick appears in a popular edition of the Ten Greatest Novels of the World.

Melville was born in 1819 in New York. His father was a merchant who later suffered a financial and a mental breakdown.

Herman had to leave school and he began working in his brother’s hat shop in Albany. (The family had to move to Albany after his father’s death). He even tried hoeing potatoes on his uncle’s farm near Pittsfield. Massachusetts, and working as a clerk in a New York bank. But he was unhappy at whatever he did, so he signed as a sailor on a ship, bound for Liverpool. He was 17 years old then. His wages were three dollars a month and he worked as a cabin boy. Herman described the voyage in the novel Redburn. He disliked the food, and the crude lifestyle on the ship. He returned home and became a teacher in a school near Pittsfield. But dissatisfaction with his work again drove him to the sea. This time he took a ship bound for the South Pacific. On board he gained a lot of knowledge about hunting whales which helped him in writing Moby Dick. Unfortunately he had set his foot on a ship which was worse than the previous one. The captain was brutal and the food inedible. He found only one friend, Tobias Green. When the ship touched an island in the Marquesas called Nukuheva, his friend and he left the ship with only shirts on their backs and a handful of biscuits and tobacco. They wandered aimlessly, into a beautiful mountain valley known for its inhabitants who were cannibals. This tribe was called the Typees.

Herman was around 25 years old when he went back home. To cope with his expenses, he put his adventurous stories into books. These books were read with great joy. Typee and Ommo were two of the five volumes that he wrote. He had enough money and he could afford to get married. His fame built up his confidence and he realised that he was a good writer.

He read a lot of Shakespeare’s works and was inspired by them. Since he knew a lot about whaling, he wrote Moby Dick. (There was a legend that there was a whale, white all over and was referred to as Moby Dick). Hence, Melville wrote a story involving Moby Dick. It was published in 1851. The sales were very low and Melville felt throughly dejected. Yet, he continued to write and managed to produce Billy Budd, which became a classic after his death. It was published in 1924, a long time after he died. Herman died in 1891.

It was only in 1920s that his works, especially Moby Dick and Billy Budd, gained recognition. Herman’s imagination, and great skill in writing, and determination took him to great heights of success, but unfortunately he did not live to enjoy his fame.

Arrowhead

TO find solitude in which to write, Melville thought of the beautiful view of Mount Greylock, the highest point in Massachusetts, from the Melvill farm in Pittsfield( where he had spent a vacation), and within a week he purchased the neighbouring farm which commanded a similar view. He named the farm "Arrowhead" after the native relics he discovered as he was ploughing the fields. The home remained his for 13 years, and there he wrote some of his finest works—.Moby Dick, Pierre, The Confidence-Man, Israel Potter, The Piazza Tales, and such short stories as I and My Chimney, Benito Cereno, Bartleby the Scrivener, and The Paradise of Bachelors and The Tartarus of Maids.

Arrowhead influenced him greatly in his writings. The view of Mount Greylock from his study window was said to be his inspiration for the white whale in Moby Dick. He dedicated his next novel, Pierre, to Mount Greylock. His short story, The Piazza, begins at Arrowhead and takes a magical journey to the mountain. Melville incorporated features and aspects of Arrowhead into several stories. The piazza, after which the story and the book The Piazza Tales were named, is a porch Melville added to the north side of Arrowhead shortly after he purchased the property. Visitors can still stand on that porch and look at the same view Melville had when he spent hours there in his rocking chair.

The story I and My Chimney, published in Putnam’s Monthly Magazine in 1856, contains one of the most complete descriptions there is of Arrowhead during the Melville occupancy. The story is a fictitious account of the efforts of a wife to remodel an ancient farm house by replacing the central chimney with a grand hallway.

Melville lived, farmed, and wrote at Arrowhead for 13 years. But during that time, although he was writing his best work, he was not making a living from his writing. Melville’s family life was punctuated with moments of joy and with difficulties. His four children enjoyed the bucolic life in Pittsfield, although his wife Lizzie had difficulty with her hayfever and frequently took trips back home to Boston. As much as Melville loved the place, he grew frustrated at the lack of success of his writing career and found his debts mounting. Melville moved his family from his beloved farm and return to New York. There he found work as a customs inspector at the New York Customs House, a job he held for over 20 years. Melville sold Arrowhead to his brother Allan who used it first as a summer home and then moved there permanently. Melville continued to visit Arrowhead through the 1880s. The Melville family owned the house until 1927. In 1975, the Berkshire County Historical Society purchased the house and began its restoration.