by HermanMelville (Author), RuthBlair (Editor)
Typee is the first romance of the South Seas, a semi-autobiographical account of life in the Marquesas Islands in the 1840s. A blend of personal experience and the narratives of explorers and missionaries, it influenced many later writers on the Pacific, including Robert Louis Stevenson and Jack London. Melville himself deserted a whaling ship in the islands and lived for four weeks among the inhabitants, observing and recording their way of life. Typee points up the wonders, the dilemmas, and the fatal impact of European encounters with the peoples of the Pacific. This edition offers an introduction that considers the book from a post-colonial perspective, and detailed annotation of Melville's allusions.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 386
Edition: New edition
Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks
Published: 01 Sep 1996
ISBN 10: 0192823078
ISBN 13: 9780192823076
An excellend edition. Blair's deeply informed introduction and notes lend contextual substance necessary to an historically aware appreciation of Typee. --Lawrence Howe, Roosevelt University
Ideal teaching edition because of the splendid notes, bibliographies and chronologies. --Robert Regan, University of Pennsylvania