Michael Shelden is the author of five biographies, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist ORWELL: The Authorized Biography, which was also a New York Times Notable Book and has been translated into five languages. His MARK TWAIN: Man in White was a New York Times bestseller, and his YOUNG TITAN: The Making of Winston Churchill was widely praised on both sides of the Atlantic. He was a features writer for the London Daily Telegraph, served as a fiction critic for the Baltimore Sun, and has written for the Washington Post and the Times of London. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana.

Books by Michael Shelden

Melville in Love: The Secret Life of Herman Melville and the Muse of Moby-Dick

by Michael Shelden - Biography, History, Nonfiction

Herman Melville’s epic novel, MOBY-DICK, was a spectacular failure when it was published in 1851. Because he was neglected by academics for so long and made little effort to preserve his legacy, we know very little about Melville, and even less about what he called his “wicked book.” Scholars still puzzle over what drove him to invent Captain Ahab's mad pursuit of the great white whale. Pulitzer Prize finalist Michael Shelden sheds light on this literary mystery to tell a story of Melville’s affair with a married woman named Sarah Morewood, whose libertine impulses encouraged and sustained his own.