[excellent overview from the dust jacket]

MELVILLE, the first new biography of America's
great storyteller in twenty-five years [pub. 1975],
is a major achievement. Intricately and sensitively,
Edwin Haviland Miller depicts the delicate balance
between Melville's life and his creativity and offers
a new perspective on the impact of family members upon
Melville's artistic experience.
MELVILLE is an "inside narrative." It begins dramatically
in the year 1850, when at age thirty-one Melville was
completing the first draft of his greatest book, -Moby-Dick-.
On Auguest 5 of that year he met Nathaniel Hawthorne, an
experience which was to have an emotional and artistic
impact for the rest of his life. Hawthorne was not
simply the author of -The Scarlet Letter-, or the American
Shakespeare as Melville was to proclaim. Fifteen years
older, Hawthorne was the kind of father or brother whom
Melville the man and the orphans in his early fiction
had been searching for.
Miller weaves back to Melville's earliest years to
depict the family bonds -- the weak father, the dominant
mother, and the favored older brother. Herman's world
collapsed suddenly in his twelfth year when his father
died, bankrupt and mad.
The biography records the painful drama of Melville's
search for a replacement of the father which fictionally
took the mythic form of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and Ishmael.
The quest in life and art proved unending, continuing into
the pages of -Billy Budd, Sailor-, which was written in
his last years.
* * * [and from within the book itself]
In the letter as in the novel Melville sought the safety
of farce to disguise the intense emotional attachment; the
tenderest and most intimate scenes in all his writings
were those between Ishmael and the cannibal. Whether
Hawthorne understood or not, Melville here exposed his
love-starved heart, but, typically, the jesting tone
took both men off the hook.
-- Edwin Haviland Miller.

Thoroughly researched, engagingly written biography. This book is a must for all who love Hawthorne's stories and novels! At 527 pages it may seem a little daunting, but I couldn't put it down! Thank you Edwin Haviland Miller.

After reading a portion of Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass", particularly the preface and "Song of Myself", I found it to be inspiring and uplifting. Whitman is the most enthuiastic American poet I have ever read and his passion for life and nature is amazing. He did not ever want to miss a second of life or the smallest detail of nature. He shares his limitless love for all Americans, including, of course, himself. I particularly enjoy his frequent usage of listing without commas, which I find livens his excitement for life even more. Whitman, although he may come off as a bit over eager to some, truly makes you realize how blessed you are and how lucky you are to live in this beautiful place, and he reminds us all that we should not take any of these blessings for granted. Something I find I need to be reminded of more than I should. I recommend this book to all.

Words cannot describe the complexity of Leaves of Grass. I am constantly amazed at how well Walt Whitman holds it all together, keeping is hand on one object while amorously praising another. Everything works in perfect cohesion...An unabashed love of self, of nature, of all that is divine and not divine. Leaves of Grass is a truly inspired work...its words are boundless and fluent, rising in an intoxicating crescendo of naked emotion. "I am the poet of the Body; and I am the poet of the Soul." Throughout Leaves of Grass there is an overwhelming theme of unity...unity of man and nature, of man and man, of man and God. Excitable sputterings of ageless wisdom become scattered, but somehow stay anchored to the intricate framework of the book. This sounds contradicting, and it is reminiscent of a line from the book --"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; (I am large-I contain multitudes.) After reading this book, you will delight in how large Walt Whitman is.

I carry a copy of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass with me where ever I go. I think that it is America's great religious book; it contains just about everything one would need to know to live a good life.

Whitman published many different editions of this book. The one I carry is the 1892 "death-bed" eddition, which contains virtually all the poetry he ever published. However I also own the "first" edition, published in 1855. In this version the poems are published without titles, so that each poem stands on its own, without any images guiding the reader before hand. I recommend either edition - or both!