Editorial Content for Melville in Love: The Secret Life of Herman Melville and the Muse of Moby-Dick
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
“I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.”
--- Ishmael, MOBY-DICK
This is the sense of adventure and worldly desire that fueled Herman Melville through his writing of MOBY-DICK in the winter of 1850. A longtime sailor, built stout and with a heavy beard, Melville had a borderline manic disposition --- the flights of fancy and outright gall that one needed to write such an epic novel. Overdone, enthralling and enormous in length, MOBY-DICK was Melville’s be-all and end-all.
In one of the numerous stories from Michael Shelden’s outstanding MELVILLE IN LOVE, Melville receives a letter from Nathaniel Hawthorne, who offers his views on the book shortly after its release. A literary giant himself, Hawthorne’s praise is enough to give Melville the security that he created a masterpiece. These private thoughts from Hawthorne meant more to Melville at the time than a lot of the reviews that would follow (not all of which were kind).
MELVILLE IN LOVE puts readers in Melville’s world as his iconic novel takes shape. During this time, he uproots his family from New York to the Berkshires, where he settles into a long winter of writing. But to describe what makes Shelden’s book a great read is more difficult. It has the beauty of hindsight and romanticism in its stories --- from Melville acting out and kidnapping a bride as a prank, to an overnight love affair at the top of Mount Greylock --- but also the deep-down madness and passion that only a great love could create.
"MELVILLE IN LOVE puts readers in Melville’s world as his iconic novel takes shape.... Shelden’s main focus is on Sarah Morewood, Melville's muse and secret greatest influence."
Shelden’s main focus is on Sarah Morewood, Melville's muse and secret greatest influence. She is described as a woman who could hike and ride horses while also making masturbation jokes with the men. She is known to be an untamed spirit, affectionate and free-willed, so it’s easy to understand why Melville falls in love with her. Both are married at the time, making their love a forbidden and barbarous sea.
Melville’s wife is Elizabeth Shaw, daughter of the upright Lemuel Shaw, Chief Justice of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The two families are well-connected, and Melville does much of his living off of what Judge Shaw provides them. Sadly, though, Elizabeth is merely an afterthought in Melville’s secluded life with Sarah, who is married to Rowland Morewood, the owner of a firm that specializes in selling bolts and railroad spikes. Neither Melville nor Sarah has money, or really much of anything, yet they find in each other something much deeper: an untamed infidelity that goes beyond love. Through letters and hidden literary references, the two share a romance that is as mythical and ageless as Melville's writing.
While Shelden does delve into Melville’s relationship with Hawthorne --- on more than one occasion, Melville goes overboard when trying to reach out to the reclusive writer --- this is first and foremost a biographical depiction of the affair that develops between Melville and Sarah. Although spoken of very little when talking about Melville and his life and times, Sarah is quintessential. Through the stories that Shelden recounts, it appears that Melville was chasing something greater than life. Catching the white whale meant love, financial success and freedom, which could be all-consuming.
Things change dramatically by the end, but what is hidden between the lines --- in love poems and secret notes between the two --- lives on, as referenced by Melville, who comes across a line in John Dryden’s erotic poem “Sigismonda and Guiscardo” that especially speaks to him: “’Twas restless rage and tempest all the night... Love rioted secure…” This is the defining influence of Sarah Morewood and the special bond they shared with each other.
Teaser
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.
Promo
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.
About the Book
A new account of Herman Melville and the writing of MOBY-DICK, written by a Pulitzer Prize finalist in Biography and based on fresh archival research, which reveals that the anarchic spirit animating Melville’s canonical work was inspired by his great love affair with a shockingly unconventional married woman.
Herman Melville’s epic novel, MOBY-DICK, was a spectacular failure when it was published in 1851, effectively ending its author’s rise to literary fame. Because he was neglected by academics for so long, and because he 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 Melville to invent Captain Ahab's mad pursuit of the great white whale.
In MELVILLE IN LOVE, Pulitzer Prize finalist Michael Shelden sheds light on this literary mystery to tell a story of Melville’s passionate, obsessive, and clandestine affair with a married woman named Sarah Morewood, whose libertine impulses encouraged and sustained Melville’s own. In his research, Shelden discovered unexplored documents suggesting that, in their shared resistance to the “iron rule” of social conformity, Sarah and Melville had forged an illicit and enduring romantic and intellectual bond. Emboldened by the thrill of courting Sarah in secret, the pleasure of falling in love, and the excitement of spending time with literary luminaries --- like Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes and Nathaniel Hawthorne --- Melville found the courage to take the leap from light works of adventure to the hugely brilliant, utterly subversive MOBY-DICK.
Filled with the rich detail and immense drama of Melville’s secret life, MELVILLE IN LOVE tells the gripping story of how one of our greatest novelists found his muse.
