The Piazza Tales

"The Piazza Tales" is a collection of short stories by Herman Melville, which he published with Dix & Edwards in 1856 in the United States. A British edition followed shortly afterward. Except for the title story, "The Piazza," all of the stories had appeared in "Putnam's Monthly" over the years before. It was the only such collection published during Melville's lifetime. [Rollyson and Paddock, p. 157] Originally, Melville had intended to entitle the volume "Benito Cereno and Other Sketches", [Rollyson and Paddock, p. 157] but it was "The Encantadas", his sketches of the Galápagos Islands, that garnered the most attention from critics. [Branch, p. 35] Even though "The Piazza Tales" received largely favorable reviews, it did not sell well enough to get Melville out of his financial straights. [Robertson-Laurant, p. 358.] [Parker p. 283ff extensively discusses the contemporary reviews and how ineffective they ultimately proved to be.]

Contents

#"The Piazza"
#"Bartleby the Scrivener" (first published in "Putnam's" November and December 1853)
#"Benito Cereno" (first published in "Putnam's" October, November and December 1855)
#"The Lightning-Rod Man" (first published in "Putnam's" August 1854)
#"The Encantadas or Enchanted Isles" (first published in "Putnam's" March, April, and May 1854)
#"The Bell-Tower" (first published in "Putnam's" August 1855)

Notes

References

*Branch, Watson G. "Herman Melville, the Critical Heritage." London; Boston: Routledge & K. Paul, 1974. ISBN 0-7100-7774-2
*Parker, Hershel. Herman Melville: A Biography. 2 vols. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-8018-5428-8
*Robertson-Lorant, Laurie. "Melville: A Biography". New York: Clarkson Potter/Publishers, 1995. ISBN 0-517-59314-9
*Rollyson, Carl E., and Lisa Olson Paddock. "Herman Melville a to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work." Facts on File Library of American Literature. New York: Facts on File, 2001. ISBN 0-8160-3851-1.

External links

* [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/15859 "The Piazza Tales"] full text at Project Gutenberg.
* [http://www.esp.org/books/melville/piazza/title.html Full text of the Dix & Edwards edition] by Electronic Scholarly Publishing prepared by Robert Robbins.