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Melville in Love: The Secret Life of Herman Melville and the Muse of Moby-Dick – A Pulitzer Finalist's Biography: How a Passionate Affair with Sarah Morewood Inspired Genius
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.
288 pages, Paperback
First published June 7, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
February 25, 2017
3.5 I first read Moby Dick when one of my sons was a senior in high school, it was assigned reading in his lit class. When he complained about having to read a book with so many pages, I just laughed. He asked me if I had read it and then challenged me to read it with him. If not for that challenge, not sure I would have finished. There are moments of brilliance but also moments of stupefying boredom. Or so I thought, but I also, thought Melville must have been a fascinating man.
He was, but like many of our authors and artists, he had feet of clay. Married to a judge's daughter, he fell in love with a married and very unusual woman, Sarah Morewood. She was his intellectual equal, loved literature, and she made him much more adventurous than he was normally so inclined. He wrote Moby Dick with the hopes of bringing a wide readership, ensuring his reputation in literary circles and making money that could help him get out of a staggering debt load. It failed, this book would not get the recognition he had hoped for until long after his death.
His life, his love, his children, affair, disenchantment with society and his literary downfall are all part of this book. His friendship, which he had hoped for more from, with Nathaniel Hawthorne and Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Who also found Sarah fascinating is all discussed.
The book reads well, is interesting as to the insights the author presents about these noted literary icons, simply written. I did feel that there was some repetition, and some belaboring of insights presented, but on the whole I did enjoy much. The history of the times, how Melville was perceived, the press he garnered. I alternately became frustrated with or felt sorry for this very vulnerable man.
He was, but like many of our authors and artists, he had feet of clay. Married to a judge's daughter, he fell in love with a married and very unusual woman, Sarah Morewood. She was his intellectual equal, loved literature, and she made him much more adventurous than he was normally so inclined. He wrote Moby Dick with the hopes of bringing a wide readership, ensuring his reputation in literary circles and making money that could help him get out of a staggering debt load. It failed, this book would not get the recognition he had hoped for until long after his death.
His life, his love, his children, affair, disenchantment with society and his literary downfall are all part of this book. His friendship, which he had hoped for more from, with Nathaniel Hawthorne and Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Who also found Sarah fascinating is all discussed.
The book reads well, is interesting as to the insights the author presents about these noted literary icons, simply written. I did feel that there was some repetition, and some belaboring of insights presented, but on the whole I did enjoy much. The history of the times, how Melville was perceived, the press he garnered. I alternately became frustrated with or felt sorry for this very vulnerable man.
December 23, 2019
The concept of a soul mate keeps most of us searching during our lives: searching for that one other person who truly understands us, who will laugh with us when we are silly, cry with us when we are sad, and love us no matter what. A person who will be, as Beethoven so beautifully expressed it, "my angel, my all, my other self". How many of us are able to find their own Immortal Beloved?
Herman Melville did, according to Michael Sheldon. He met a woman by the name of Sarah Morewood and fell in love. They connected on all the levels that we expect from a soul mate, and they were happy together.
Except that she was married to someone else, and so was he.
The author delved into personal letters and an extensive bibliography to show what he believes was the hidden romantic connection between Herman and Sarah, and I must say that after reading another biography of Melville and coming away from it confused, this one made me feel like I have finally met HM and understand him better. It all makes so much sense!
If an ordinary person like myself can feel so much more than merely 'me' with the benefit of a soul mate in my life, imagine how much such a bond would do for a creative genius like Melville. He did not feel alone any more. He finally had one person that understood his mind, his sense of humor, his need to be himself.
He wrote Moby Dick during the first year he was involved with Sarah. And he wrote Pierre during his Sarah years also. In that book, "he comes face to face with the darkest questions of the last two years. What was the good of finding love when you can't have it?"
I have not read Pierre yet, but I have it on order. Even though Sheldon completely gives away the (especially for those times) shocking plot twist while illustrating his points, I am still interested In reading it for myself. Those two books and Billy Budd were Melville's lasting masterpieces, according to Sheldon. I think if Sarah had not been in his life, the books may never have been written, or at least may never have been written in the exact way they were.
Readers either love or hate Melville's work. Most of us remember being force-fed Melville in school. I read Moby Dick on my own years later, but I never could face Billy Budd again after 10th grade English class. I may be ready to understand it now, though. Think of this: after years of depression and loneliness, missing Sarah, missing that connection he enjoyed at least for a little while, looking back and trying to understand his own life, after 19 years of slaving away as a clerk, he writes what Sheldon calls "one last act of faith in a career that most people assumed was dead and buried."
One last cry for freedom. How can I not give it another chance? (Even though Sheldon spoils the plot to this book also. I guess that is an occupational hazard when you are writing a probing work about another author's life.)
You can put me down as one who loves Melville. Even more so now that this book seems to clear up so many unusual aspects of his life. And by the way, if you have not yet found your soul mate, don't give up hope. I met mine when I was 50, after a few disastrous relationships and a tosser of a first marriage. Maybe I can sympathize with Herman better because of how my life is with someone who gives to me all that Sarah gave to him.
Herman Melville did, according to Michael Sheldon. He met a woman by the name of Sarah Morewood and fell in love. They connected on all the levels that we expect from a soul mate, and they were happy together.
Except that she was married to someone else, and so was he.
The author delved into personal letters and an extensive bibliography to show what he believes was the hidden romantic connection between Herman and Sarah, and I must say that after reading another biography of Melville and coming away from it confused, this one made me feel like I have finally met HM and understand him better. It all makes so much sense!
If an ordinary person like myself can feel so much more than merely 'me' with the benefit of a soul mate in my life, imagine how much such a bond would do for a creative genius like Melville. He did not feel alone any more. He finally had one person that understood his mind, his sense of humor, his need to be himself.
He wrote Moby Dick during the first year he was involved with Sarah. And he wrote Pierre during his Sarah years also. In that book, "he comes face to face with the darkest questions of the last two years. What was the good of finding love when you can't have it?"
I have not read Pierre yet, but I have it on order. Even though Sheldon completely gives away the (especially for those times) shocking plot twist while illustrating his points, I am still interested In reading it for myself. Those two books and Billy Budd were Melville's lasting masterpieces, according to Sheldon. I think if Sarah had not been in his life, the books may never have been written, or at least may never have been written in the exact way they were.
Readers either love or hate Melville's work. Most of us remember being force-fed Melville in school. I read Moby Dick on my own years later, but I never could face Billy Budd again after 10th grade English class. I may be ready to understand it now, though. Think of this: after years of depression and loneliness, missing Sarah, missing that connection he enjoyed at least for a little while, looking back and trying to understand his own life, after 19 years of slaving away as a clerk, he writes what Sheldon calls "one last act of faith in a career that most people assumed was dead and buried."
One last cry for freedom. How can I not give it another chance? (Even though Sheldon spoils the plot to this book also. I guess that is an occupational hazard when you are writing a probing work about another author's life.)
You can put me down as one who loves Melville. Even more so now that this book seems to clear up so many unusual aspects of his life. And by the way, if you have not yet found your soul mate, don't give up hope. I met mine when I was 50, after a few disastrous relationships and a tosser of a first marriage. Maybe I can sympathize with Herman better because of how my life is with someone who gives to me all that Sarah gave to him.
June 18, 2016
It is 165 years since “Moby Dick” was published. The book was published in 1851. The book was a failure at the time and Melville was ignored by the academics for a long time, and little was done to save his legacy. Little information is now available for biographers doing research. Michael Shelden was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his biography book “Orwell”. Shelden states while doing archival research he came across new information about Melville. He claims to have found a “long trail of clues” about Melville and Morewood. Shelden states he found a few letters from Melville to Morewood as well as poems written by both parties.
Shelden places the time line of the book between the years 1850 to 1852 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. This is during the time Melville was finishing writing “Moby Dick”. The premise of the book is an affair between Melville and his next door neighbor, the poet Sarah Morewood. Morewood was married, as was Melville, and known for her wit and beauty. The middle of the book deviates from his main theme and explores Melville’s relationship with painter J. M. W. Turner’s influence on “Moby Dick”. Shelden also at this time explores the friendship with Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The book is well written and entertaining; it reads like a novel. Based on what I read in this book I do not feel Shelden proved his case about the affair. It feels more like inference rather than documented fact. The reader must keep in mind that the language was a lot more expressive and flowery in those days than it is today. Many men and women wrote each other poems at that time. Morewood received many poems from male neighbors and friends. The book is interesting and provides a delightful peak into what summertime in the Berkshires was like in the 1850s. I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. Sean Pratt did a good job narrating the book.
Shelden places the time line of the book between the years 1850 to 1852 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. This is during the time Melville was finishing writing “Moby Dick”. The premise of the book is an affair between Melville and his next door neighbor, the poet Sarah Morewood. Morewood was married, as was Melville, and known for her wit and beauty. The middle of the book deviates from his main theme and explores Melville’s relationship with painter J. M. W. Turner’s influence on “Moby Dick”. Shelden also at this time explores the friendship with Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The book is well written and entertaining; it reads like a novel. Based on what I read in this book I do not feel Shelden proved his case about the affair. It feels more like inference rather than documented fact. The reader must keep in mind that the language was a lot more expressive and flowery in those days than it is today. Many men and women wrote each other poems at that time. Morewood received many poems from male neighbors and friends. The book is interesting and provides a delightful peak into what summertime in the Berkshires was like in the 1850s. I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. Sean Pratt did a good job narrating the book.
June 12, 2016
Melville in Love is the sixth biography by talented author Michael Shelden and should not be overlooked. It is a wonderful story that reads like a novel. The rich descriptions and flow of words takes us through life in east coast America in the mid 1850’s and beyond. As readers, we touch the furniture, peek into parlors, and feel the angst of a man in love who happens to be Herman Melville. Shelden’s narrative allows us to see a man driven, consumed, and enriched by a love that is beyond a traditional biography of facts, timelines, and events.
To say this is an easy read minimizes the author’s beautiful use of the English language. No living author can tell a story like Michael Shelden. It’s as if he is standing in front of us, to the right of a fireplace, with scrimshaw in hand. He speaks the tale of a man, Herman Melville, whose life was filled with adventure and dreams but also with great sorrow. After writing the one book every author deems necessary to launch a successful literary career, Melville finds himself ignored, broke, and working a government job for almost twenty years before retiring into an “uneasy old age.” As a young man, Melville was deeply in love. Elizabeth “Lizzie” Shaw was his wife, the mother of his children with whom he had taken the vow of “obligations.” Sarah Morehead was his true love, his muse with whom he could share everything, except a life together.
When Shelden speaks, it is a gift that is eloquently played out on the page. You can sense the wonderment the author feels for the story. It is infectious. This is a book not to be missed.
To say this is an easy read minimizes the author’s beautiful use of the English language. No living author can tell a story like Michael Shelden. It’s as if he is standing in front of us, to the right of a fireplace, with scrimshaw in hand. He speaks the tale of a man, Herman Melville, whose life was filled with adventure and dreams but also with great sorrow. After writing the one book every author deems necessary to launch a successful literary career, Melville finds himself ignored, broke, and working a government job for almost twenty years before retiring into an “uneasy old age.” As a young man, Melville was deeply in love. Elizabeth “Lizzie” Shaw was his wife, the mother of his children with whom he had taken the vow of “obligations.” Sarah Morehead was his true love, his muse with whom he could share everything, except a life together.
When Shelden speaks, it is a gift that is eloquently played out on the page. You can sense the wonderment the author feels for the story. It is infectious. This is a book not to be missed.
October 2, 2016
Author Michael Shelden focuses on a short but pivotal time in Herman Melville’s life. Sheldon poses that falling in love informed Melville’s career-wrecking novel “Pierre”, and provided the emotional energy that infuses his masterpiece, “Moby Dick”.
After his big success with novels of Polynesia, Melville moved his small family to Pittsfield, MA. His uncle had property there that was being sold to Rowland Morewood and it is on this estate, Broadhall, that Melville met the buyer’s fun loving wife. Sarah Morewood hosted parties, picnics and lead community events. Melville, after an adventurous life at sea is stuck in a dull marriage and relies on his father-in-law’s support. In Sarah he saw excitement and daring. Her manner of flirting implied sexual freedom that was not accepted in this area of New England.
Here are a few bits of Shelden's circumstantial evidence: Melville paid way too much for the farm adjoining Broadhall. Melville dedicated Moby Dick to Mount Greylock where Sarah had arranged a hiking party/overnight/picnic where, perhaps their love was consummated. The plot of “Pierre” looks like the story of Melville’s passion for Sarah with the truth masked by subplots. Sarah’s letters to the (prudish) George Duyckinck are designed to mislead others to think that he has her heart. There is the hint that a child born to Sarah is Melville’s and that a message left by Mrs. Melville (Lizzie) “to know all is to forgive all” means that she knew of this affair.
There is more circumstantial evidence and the reader can clearly see the plausibility of the argument. Whether or not Shelden is on to something, he has created a whole new way to view the hunt for the great whale.
There are two side stories in this short book. One is of Melville viewing JMW Turner’s sea paintings while in England, and the other is about Melville’s extension of friendship to his cold and withholding neighbor, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
This is recommended for Melville readers, those interested in literature of this period and those who love the Berkshire region and its history.
July 12, 2016
Did you know that Herman Melville, author of Moby-Dick, climbed Mt. Greylock? In 1851 Melville climbed Mt. Greylock on the trail called Bellows Pipe. This ‘excursion to Greylock’ was by wagon and horses, and on foot. What is most amazing is that he made the climb with his secret lover Mrs. Sarah Moorewood. Sarah was a “wild beauty” who rode a colt named Black Quake. She had a salacious reputation that would make men tremble in her presence. And Herman Melville fell into her lusty charms. Impossible to put down, Melville in Love deserves a place on your book shelf right next to Moby-Dick. Biographer Michael Sheldon brings the reader through Melville’s private adventures with rich descriptions; quite fast-paced, this biography is vivid with the emotional life and mindset of Melville. You won’t be disappointed or bored. Not a single page gets tedious. If you are looking for a delicious summer read where history, literature, and nature are provocative elements, Melville in Love is a mesmerizing portrait of two lovers in a heart-breaking story.
April 5, 2020
This is a fabulous book of literary sleuthing that sheds light on the source of inspiration for Melville's classic "Moby-Dick" as well as subsequent works. The contention of the author is that Melville fell in love with Sarah Morewood, a Berkshires neighbor, though both were married, and when he borrowed money from his father-in-law to immediately buy a small farm adjacent to hers and thence move his extended family from Manhattan to Pittsfield in the Berkshires, he needed to score a huge hit in order to make money to repay his father-in-law - but also needed to express in the book the conflicted state he was in since neither lover could exit their present marriage, and the result was "Moby-Dick." The author, like Ahab, had become obsessed with an unobtainable goal - moreover, to have obtained it, for Melville, would have represented a severe moral failing. The conflicts play out in the book as well as the subsequent "Pierre." These books were not understood by many in the mid-19th Century, and Melville - who had become popular with his earlier travel accounts "Typee" and "Omoo" -- suffered critical and financial downfall with his works starting with "Moby-Dick." These works were rediscovered in the 1920s and "Moby-Dick" since then is considered one of the greatest works of fiction ever written. "Melville in Love: The Secret Life of Herman Melville and the Muse of Moby-Dick" is a fascinating work for anyone who has read "Moby-Dick" or is interested in the renowned author Herman Melville. It's clearly and well written, and the reader will be hooked on its revelations, similar to reading a detective story. You will want to find out what happened next to Melville and his family - and the sad trajectory of Melville's life and relationship with Sarah, as well as Sarah's life, is set forth in the book. I read "Moby-Dick" many years ago - possibly as young as 12 years old. I remember only so much - how much could have been "relevant" to me at that young age after all? But I do remember the excitement of the book and its incredible intricacy and detail about maritime life on the whaler. I suppose now, after more than 50 years, I should re-read it and see what effect it will have, after a lifetime of "experience" and picking up some facts or knowledge here and there in the meantime. "Melville in Love: The Secret Life of Herman Melville and the Muse of Moby-Dick" is a book that anyone who has read "Moby-Dick" or is interested in 19th Century American literature will find fascinating and enjoy.
Here are a few quotes:
"Melville fell completely under his lover's spell from the moment they met in the summer of 1850."
"How did this young man known primarily for writing light books of adventure suddenly experience one of the most remarkable bursts of creative inspiration in literary history?"
"(In "Typee" the overdressed ladies parading though the great capitals of the world are described as "moving in whalebone corsets, like so many automatons.")"
"I detest [Pittsfield] ... so much," [Hawthorne] ... wrote only a month before 'The Scarlet Letter' was published, "that I hate to go into the streets, or to have the people see me." By moving to Lenox at the opposite end of Massachusetts, he went about as far as he could go without actually leaving the commonwealth. His new place was a good walk beyond the town itself, and in its relative isolation, he could avoid seeing other writers."
"[In Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.'s novel "Elsie Venner" the protagonist - identified with Sarah - extols nature] ....as the one sure source of grace and comfort. Nature was immortality, and whether as a woman or leaf or stream, all things were united in the eternal cycle of the seasons, and of life and death."
"Moby-Dick" is the literary equivalent of a gallery filled with the best of [J.M.W.] Turner's canvases."
"...Melville's fear that all human endeavor, no matter how grand or seemingly righteous, is doomed to fail and be tainted by what he calls the "horrible vulturism of earth" -- the universal predatory urge that sweeps humanity into countless voyages to chase and capture one thing or another."
"...Melville found a way to explain the transformation in his life that had abruptly caused him to settle in the Berkshires, sent him deeply into debt, strained his marriage, and inspired in "Moby-Dick" the best book he would ever write."
"Profoundly discouraged, Pierre confronts the hard fact that he can't create the book he wants because the world prefers pretty lies to harsh truths."
"In the "Literary World's" review [of "Pierre," the Duyckincks] ... treated the man who had been their host in the Berkshires as a kind of literary outlaw writing books that attacked the foundations of everything sacred."
"Melville had long ago worn out his welcome [in Pittsfield] and was barely tolerated in the community."
"The relaxed social codes of the [Civil] war allowed [Sarah] ... to mingle among the officers and absorb their attention in a way that delighted her, and she enjoyed joking with them in a free manner that would have shocked Pittsfield before the war."
"There must have been many times when Melville looked back on the storm that "Moby-Dick" churned up for him and wondered what it all meant."
"On an allowance that [his wife] Lizzie gave [Herman], ... he was able to buy books and engravings, but he had no one with whom he could share them."
"[Melville:] Vain now thy ardor, vain thy fire,
Delirium mere, unsound desire;
Fate's knife hath ripped thy chorded lyre."
Here are a few quotes:
"Melville fell completely under his lover's spell from the moment they met in the summer of 1850."
"How did this young man known primarily for writing light books of adventure suddenly experience one of the most remarkable bursts of creative inspiration in literary history?"
"(In "Typee" the overdressed ladies parading though the great capitals of the world are described as "moving in whalebone corsets, like so many automatons.")"
"I detest [Pittsfield] ... so much," [Hawthorne] ... wrote only a month before 'The Scarlet Letter' was published, "that I hate to go into the streets, or to have the people see me." By moving to Lenox at the opposite end of Massachusetts, he went about as far as he could go without actually leaving the commonwealth. His new place was a good walk beyond the town itself, and in its relative isolation, he could avoid seeing other writers."
"[In Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.'s novel "Elsie Venner" the protagonist - identified with Sarah - extols nature] ....as the one sure source of grace and comfort. Nature was immortality, and whether as a woman or leaf or stream, all things were united in the eternal cycle of the seasons, and of life and death."
"Moby-Dick" is the literary equivalent of a gallery filled with the best of [J.M.W.] Turner's canvases."
"...Melville's fear that all human endeavor, no matter how grand or seemingly righteous, is doomed to fail and be tainted by what he calls the "horrible vulturism of earth" -- the universal predatory urge that sweeps humanity into countless voyages to chase and capture one thing or another."
"...Melville found a way to explain the transformation in his life that had abruptly caused him to settle in the Berkshires, sent him deeply into debt, strained his marriage, and inspired in "Moby-Dick" the best book he would ever write."
"Profoundly discouraged, Pierre confronts the hard fact that he can't create the book he wants because the world prefers pretty lies to harsh truths."
"In the "Literary World's" review [of "Pierre," the Duyckincks] ... treated the man who had been their host in the Berkshires as a kind of literary outlaw writing books that attacked the foundations of everything sacred."
"Melville had long ago worn out his welcome [in Pittsfield] and was barely tolerated in the community."
"The relaxed social codes of the [Civil] war allowed [Sarah] ... to mingle among the officers and absorb their attention in a way that delighted her, and she enjoyed joking with them in a free manner that would have shocked Pittsfield before the war."
"There must have been many times when Melville looked back on the storm that "Moby-Dick" churned up for him and wondered what it all meant."
"On an allowance that [his wife] Lizzie gave [Herman], ... he was able to buy books and engravings, but he had no one with whom he could share them."
"[Melville:] Vain now thy ardor, vain thy fire,
Delirium mere, unsound desire;
Fate's knife hath ripped thy chorded lyre."
August 14, 2016
The writer of Moby-Dick, the story of the great whale, had a life a adventure, love, and tragedy. The classic novel was not recognized for its literary accomplishments until long after his death. He did not receive the praise in his life time. It left him a bitter man.
The one love of his life Mrs. Sarah Morewood was a married woman whom he could not claim as his own. Their summer of 1850 in the Berkshires of Massachusetts would be the highlight of his life with the picnics, serious conversations of books and poems, flirtations, and an overnight camp out on Mount Greylock with the woman he could not claim as his own. In the fall of 1850 while Sarah was away in England is when he started writing the epic tale of Moby-Dick. Their secret love affair lasted until her death in 1863.
Herman Melville remained in a loveless marriage to Lizzie for over forty years. Upon his death, Lizzie found the almost finished manuscript of Billy Budd that Herman was working on and through efforts of his granddaughter and others it was published in 1924 which helped to restore Melville's reputation. The great literary luminaries of literature live on.
Quote:
But, as they were quick to realize, books are wonderful places for hiding secrets.
"Make a fire bright with my letters and oblige me," she once told another man to whom she sent flirtatious messages, and no doubt she advised Melville to do the same.
She wanted to enjoy herself, and in her almost manic urge to make the most of each day, she resented having to abide by conventional morality----or, as she called it, "the iron rule which cramps and confines our best and purest feelings."
The one love of his life Mrs. Sarah Morewood was a married woman whom he could not claim as his own. Their summer of 1850 in the Berkshires of Massachusetts would be the highlight of his life with the picnics, serious conversations of books and poems, flirtations, and an overnight camp out on Mount Greylock with the woman he could not claim as his own. In the fall of 1850 while Sarah was away in England is when he started writing the epic tale of Moby-Dick. Their secret love affair lasted until her death in 1863.
Herman Melville remained in a loveless marriage to Lizzie for over forty years. Upon his death, Lizzie found the almost finished manuscript of Billy Budd that Herman was working on and through efforts of his granddaughter and others it was published in 1924 which helped to restore Melville's reputation. The great literary luminaries of literature live on.
Quote:
But, as they were quick to realize, books are wonderful places for hiding secrets.
"Make a fire bright with my letters and oblige me," she once told another man to whom she sent flirtatious messages, and no doubt she advised Melville to do the same.
She wanted to enjoy herself, and in her almost manic urge to make the most of each day, she resented having to abide by conventional morality----or, as she called it, "the iron rule which cramps and confines our best and purest feelings."
November 2, 2020
A mix of a book about Moby Dick and about the author's life, with a special emphasis on the years surrounding his big expedition into literature.
It's a fun read, and if I hadn't read a biography of Melville already, I might have enjoyed it more. It is a good, though not substantially deep, look into the composition of Moby Dick. I wasn't enraptured or convinced entirely about the centrality of this platonic romance in Melville's life. Even of taken as true, I don't see the significance of it in the novel, which famously has nothing to do with heterosexual relationships. Nonetheless, it is a pleasurable read, with suitable incursions into its pages by Hawthorne and Emerson when needed. Worth your time if you want a glimpse into Melville and Moby Dick and the Berkshires in the 1850s.
It's a fun read, and if I hadn't read a biography of Melville already, I might have enjoyed it more. It is a good, though not substantially deep, look into the composition of Moby Dick. I wasn't enraptured or convinced entirely about the centrality of this platonic romance in Melville's life. Even of taken as true, I don't see the significance of it in the novel, which famously has nothing to do with heterosexual relationships. Nonetheless, it is a pleasurable read, with suitable incursions into its pages by Hawthorne and Emerson when needed. Worth your time if you want a glimpse into Melville and Moby Dick and the Berkshires in the 1850s.
July 26, 2022
Lots of good information In this short biographical book but there were so many relatively positive references to Melville’s oft derided novel, Pierre, that I am now embarrassed I’ve not read the book.
February 17, 2019
If you have read most of Herman Melville's novels, this study of his surroundings at the time of the writing of MOBY-DICK will intrigue you. Michael Shelden's writing is engaging. Even if you have not read Melville deeply, the story of his friendship with a married woman, and the consequences of this friendship in mid-19th-century America, will hold your interest. If you've read many of Melville's works and a fair number of books and articles about him, you will be pleased with MELVILLE IN LOVE, because, in it, Herman Melville's sudden decline in popularity, at the moment of his greatest achievement, is explained. The complexity of MOBY-DICK certainly caused readers to lose interest in Melville, but what happened was that, in socializing with a number of literary players, his indiscretion about his unusually close relationship with married woman caused them to sever ties with him.
One gruesome anecdote about another love triangle helps this book show the consequences of such activity in 19th-century America. I stress this anecdote did not involve Melville or Sarah's husband, but Melville knew one of the participants. Shelden recounts the whipping, by the wronged husband, in Washington Square, of the man who'd cuckolded him. The man doing the whipping was a famous stage actor.
One of the best aspects of this book is the picture it paints of the genteel life in New York and New England in the decade before the Civil War. Great Britain, where Victoria reigned, features here as well, because then, as now, a parallel publishing world existed. Herman Melville started out less than five years before MOBY-DICK by impressing readers with vivid accounts of life at sea and adventures in the tropics. But when he mingled with the movers and shakers of the publishing world he alienated them to the point where they wanted nothing to do with him.
The one friend whose public opinion would have helped him was, unfortunately, the man to whom MOBY-DICK was dedicated. In 1851, a man simply couldn't review a book, even one he really loved, if it had been dedicated to him. It would be hard enough today. In Hawthorne's era (it being he to whom Melville had dedicated his book) an author could damage his reputation by reviewing a book dedicated to himself. He'd written Melville a letter praising MOBY-DICK, but Melville didn't ask him to review it and certainly didn't expect him to. He did not review it, but a mutual friend of theirs, the editor of THE LITERARY WORLD, did. It was a scathing review, pointing out Melville's pleasure in lampooning the values of decent society. Melville had made the mistake, several months before MOBY-DICK was published, of inviting that man along with a band of merry-makers, on an overnight hike up the local mountain, GREYLOCK, where he let the party see how emotionally close he was with Sarah Moreland, the wife of his next-door-neighbor.
Shelden makes the case for his idea that this relationship rocked the town of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. I'll give you an example of Shelden's astute observation. He quotes several key sentences from a novel Oliver Wendell Holmes, who knew Sarah Moreland and Melville, wrote. It was about a rambunctious horse-riding woman who behaves just lime Sarah Moreland and does many of the same things. She is reckless and is to be "pitied" for beguiling the men of the neighborhood. This was an era of letter-writing and diaries, and there are letters Melville wrote to Sarah, diary entries and letters by his family-members and a number of books Sarah and Melville gave each other with words written in the margins, underlined passages and evocative inscriptions. If the relationship was not sexual (and that's a big "if"), it is clear that Melville was emotionally invested in Sarah Moreland and not in his wife. Some of his poems borrow phrases from her poems.
Briefly, Melville had spent a lot of his childhood and youth in his uncle's farmhouse in Pittsfield. After Melville had made his literary splash in the 1840s with TYPEE, OMOO, MARDI, WHITE-JACKET and REDBURN, he thought he was going to make a living as a novelist. His uncle died, his cousin sold the house and Melville, having taken a train from New York to Pittsfield to help prepare the house for the new owners, a Mr. and Mrs. Moreland, experienced a summer of co-habitation in his ancestral home with Sarah Moreland, the house having been turned, temporarily, into a boarding house. Note that this is respectable in the public eye. It is a boarding house, after all. Longfellow stayed there! Anyway, Melville, thinking he was set for life because his books had caught on, borrowed a massive amount of money from his father-in-law, a justice on the Massachusetts Supreme Court, to buy the property next door to the boarding house. He made this purchase suddenly, almost as soon as Sarah Moreland and her husband bought it. The husband traveled to England without his wife and Melville and Sarah spent the summer entertaining townsfolk and literary friends at his uncle's old house. Melville literally kidnapped, as a practical joke - more on this later - the wife of a colleague of the magazine editor (the same editor who would, a year later, write that bad review of MOBY-DICK) as she and her husband were about to board a train his friend the editor was seeing them off on. Melville put her in a carriage and raced toward the mansion Sarah Moreland owned so that the woman could play the bride at a masquerade party they were having that night. The husband raced in another carriage and, arriving at the house, cursed out Melville and Sarah. He wrote a letter to a newspaper about this. He also reviewed MOBY-DICK. His review was negative as well, as had the editor's been. If you don't think Melville would have survived this supposedly humorous kidnapping today, imagine how this was taken in 1850. It is as weird a story as any biographer of Melville's has told, but Michael Shelden convincingly conveys that Melville was a fool, as opposed to a menace. Melville and Sarah had both read and loved a scene in a Tobias Smollett novel wherein a mad kidnaps a bride at the altar. This was a re-enactment. At the age of thirty-one, Melville was behaving like a twenty-year old, and it was not any comfort to the townspeople or the literary lions that he was a married man acting extravagantly around a married woman. People being entertained by them risked being judged by society.
Whether the reader comes away disliking Melville or not, this account of his midlife crisis is worthwhile. It is believable. It makes sense.
Before reading this book I spent the previous two months reading Melville's first three novels. Getting a sense of his humor, especially from the Rabelaisian MARDI, I was prepared for MELVILLE IN LOVE. The man in this account sound like the man who wrote those books. (In my life I've also read MOBY-DICK and all the prose he wrote after that.) His confidence in buying, on borrowed money, the house next door to his old childhood retreat, had a lot to do with his own idea that he was going to sell a lot of books. MARDI, which did not sell well, is almost the equal of MOBY-DICK in its scope and execution. Many of its chapters are ABOUT writers facing neglect. Melville thought he'd be the great writer who also sold like hotcakes. Alas, he was only a great writer.
One gruesome anecdote about another love triangle helps this book show the consequences of such activity in 19th-century America. I stress this anecdote did not involve Melville or Sarah's husband, but Melville knew one of the participants. Shelden recounts the whipping, by the wronged husband, in Washington Square, of the man who'd cuckolded him. The man doing the whipping was a famous stage actor.
One of the best aspects of this book is the picture it paints of the genteel life in New York and New England in the decade before the Civil War. Great Britain, where Victoria reigned, features here as well, because then, as now, a parallel publishing world existed. Herman Melville started out less than five years before MOBY-DICK by impressing readers with vivid accounts of life at sea and adventures in the tropics. But when he mingled with the movers and shakers of the publishing world he alienated them to the point where they wanted nothing to do with him.
The one friend whose public opinion would have helped him was, unfortunately, the man to whom MOBY-DICK was dedicated. In 1851, a man simply couldn't review a book, even one he really loved, if it had been dedicated to him. It would be hard enough today. In Hawthorne's era (it being he to whom Melville had dedicated his book) an author could damage his reputation by reviewing a book dedicated to himself. He'd written Melville a letter praising MOBY-DICK, but Melville didn't ask him to review it and certainly didn't expect him to. He did not review it, but a mutual friend of theirs, the editor of THE LITERARY WORLD, did. It was a scathing review, pointing out Melville's pleasure in lampooning the values of decent society. Melville had made the mistake, several months before MOBY-DICK was published, of inviting that man along with a band of merry-makers, on an overnight hike up the local mountain, GREYLOCK, where he let the party see how emotionally close he was with Sarah Moreland, the wife of his next-door-neighbor.
Shelden makes the case for his idea that this relationship rocked the town of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. I'll give you an example of Shelden's astute observation. He quotes several key sentences from a novel Oliver Wendell Holmes, who knew Sarah Moreland and Melville, wrote. It was about a rambunctious horse-riding woman who behaves just lime Sarah Moreland and does many of the same things. She is reckless and is to be "pitied" for beguiling the men of the neighborhood. This was an era of letter-writing and diaries, and there are letters Melville wrote to Sarah, diary entries and letters by his family-members and a number of books Sarah and Melville gave each other with words written in the margins, underlined passages and evocative inscriptions. If the relationship was not sexual (and that's a big "if"), it is clear that Melville was emotionally invested in Sarah Moreland and not in his wife. Some of his poems borrow phrases from her poems.
Briefly, Melville had spent a lot of his childhood and youth in his uncle's farmhouse in Pittsfield. After Melville had made his literary splash in the 1840s with TYPEE, OMOO, MARDI, WHITE-JACKET and REDBURN, he thought he was going to make a living as a novelist. His uncle died, his cousin sold the house and Melville, having taken a train from New York to Pittsfield to help prepare the house for the new owners, a Mr. and Mrs. Moreland, experienced a summer of co-habitation in his ancestral home with Sarah Moreland, the house having been turned, temporarily, into a boarding house. Note that this is respectable in the public eye. It is a boarding house, after all. Longfellow stayed there! Anyway, Melville, thinking he was set for life because his books had caught on, borrowed a massive amount of money from his father-in-law, a justice on the Massachusetts Supreme Court, to buy the property next door to the boarding house. He made this purchase suddenly, almost as soon as Sarah Moreland and her husband bought it. The husband traveled to England without his wife and Melville and Sarah spent the summer entertaining townsfolk and literary friends at his uncle's old house. Melville literally kidnapped, as a practical joke - more on this later - the wife of a colleague of the magazine editor (the same editor who would, a year later, write that bad review of MOBY-DICK) as she and her husband were about to board a train his friend the editor was seeing them off on. Melville put her in a carriage and raced toward the mansion Sarah Moreland owned so that the woman could play the bride at a masquerade party they were having that night. The husband raced in another carriage and, arriving at the house, cursed out Melville and Sarah. He wrote a letter to a newspaper about this. He also reviewed MOBY-DICK. His review was negative as well, as had the editor's been. If you don't think Melville would have survived this supposedly humorous kidnapping today, imagine how this was taken in 1850. It is as weird a story as any biographer of Melville's has told, but Michael Shelden convincingly conveys that Melville was a fool, as opposed to a menace. Melville and Sarah had both read and loved a scene in a Tobias Smollett novel wherein a mad kidnaps a bride at the altar. This was a re-enactment. At the age of thirty-one, Melville was behaving like a twenty-year old, and it was not any comfort to the townspeople or the literary lions that he was a married man acting extravagantly around a married woman. People being entertained by them risked being judged by society.
Whether the reader comes away disliking Melville or not, this account of his midlife crisis is worthwhile. It is believable. It makes sense.
Before reading this book I spent the previous two months reading Melville's first three novels. Getting a sense of his humor, especially from the Rabelaisian MARDI, I was prepared for MELVILLE IN LOVE. The man in this account sound like the man who wrote those books. (In my life I've also read MOBY-DICK and all the prose he wrote after that.) His confidence in buying, on borrowed money, the house next door to his old childhood retreat, had a lot to do with his own idea that he was going to sell a lot of books. MARDI, which did not sell well, is almost the equal of MOBY-DICK in its scope and execution. Many of its chapters are ABOUT writers facing neglect. Melville thought he'd be the great writer who also sold like hotcakes. Alas, he was only a great writer.
July 25, 2018
Damn near worshipful of Melville, highly speculative, and inconsistent in analysis-usually if Melville equates something with a religious references it's done to disguise sarcasm and mockery except when it suites the author's needs such as when Melville refers to Sarah as a rose with Melville loves for their religious association. Give me a break. I want insight into Melville and Moby Dick as much as the next person, but this is grasping at straws throughout.
September 10, 2016
Wouldn't be surprised if this became a film drama-bio.
March 14, 2020
Shelden did something extraordinary with this 2015 biography of Herman Melville. His book reads with the rhythm and pace of a lively novel, and we are introduced to a beautiful historical romance. Through expertly selected excerpts from novels, poems, and letters, Shelden brings to life a persuasive argument for Melville's decades-long true-love affair with the also-married Sarah Overwood, which began when they became neighbors in western Massachusetts. Impressively, it never escaped Shelden that love is part of life - or more precisely a love affair as H.M. had with S.O is only part of a life - Melville's life in this case, and one like no other, filled with genius, passion, tragedy, and (somehow) hope.
July 5, 2020
I love this bio on Herman Meliville. What an amzing man and heart breaking was a life of a genus way ahead of his time.
December 14, 2016
Being unfamiliar with Herman Melville beyond the fact that he wrote Moby Dick, this book definitely had information new to me. It was intriguing to learn the personal side of such a giant in American literature. It's always fascinating to see such figures as human as you or I. However, some of the points the author reaches seem overly stressed. He expounds on the same points again and again, to the point of the proverbial 2x4. For a work this small, this duplicate expounding is even more evident.
The author presented his material in such a way to be very readable. He writes in an easy-flowing style, presenting the facts interspersed with quoted primary material. The narrative flows from point to point easily; the reader doesn't have to wade through chunks of dry material to absorb the information on this literary figure.
The information presented made me see Herman Melville in a whole new light. I hadn't given his personal life much thought besides the fact that he wrote Moby Dick and was an associate of Hawthorne. Yet the author is able to make this man a passionate, frenzied, melancholic, and flawed individual. He gives Melville depth by showing us his associations with friends, acquaintances, family, and lover. I finish this book feeling like I knew him on a very personal level; I'm not sure if this was the author’s intent, but it was achieved.
The author also makes some very interesting points on the writing process and inspiration for Moby Dick. Seeing how Melville's relationship with Mrs. Morewood impacted both his creative endeavors and personal life was the main focus of the book. The author does a fantastic job in shedding a new light onto Melville's inspirations and his primary work.
However, this area is also where the book fails a bit. There were times I felt the author was stressing Sarah's personality, love of nature, and hold over Melville too much. I got the point the author was conveying after the first few times the author makes it. Yet, these aspects are stressed so many times that it almost feels like the author felt his audience was dumb. And for a work this short, the overstressing of points and information is all the more a sin.
For an area that is fairly new to me, this book was engaging. It was informative and fairly entertaining to read. While there were times the author overstressed items and points, I still enjoyed this work as an intimate look into the life of an American literary icon and the impact the woman he loved had over him and his creativity. I would recommend this book to those looking for an informative and light read on a new topic.
Note: Book received for free from the publisher via a GoodReads giveaway in exchange for an honest review.
The author presented his material in such a way to be very readable. He writes in an easy-flowing style, presenting the facts interspersed with quoted primary material. The narrative flows from point to point easily; the reader doesn't have to wade through chunks of dry material to absorb the information on this literary figure.
The information presented made me see Herman Melville in a whole new light. I hadn't given his personal life much thought besides the fact that he wrote Moby Dick and was an associate of Hawthorne. Yet the author is able to make this man a passionate, frenzied, melancholic, and flawed individual. He gives Melville depth by showing us his associations with friends, acquaintances, family, and lover. I finish this book feeling like I knew him on a very personal level; I'm not sure if this was the author’s intent, but it was achieved.
The author also makes some very interesting points on the writing process and inspiration for Moby Dick. Seeing how Melville's relationship with Mrs. Morewood impacted both his creative endeavors and personal life was the main focus of the book. The author does a fantastic job in shedding a new light onto Melville's inspirations and his primary work.
However, this area is also where the book fails a bit. There were times I felt the author was stressing Sarah's personality, love of nature, and hold over Melville too much. I got the point the author was conveying after the first few times the author makes it. Yet, these aspects are stressed so many times that it almost feels like the author felt his audience was dumb. And for a work this short, the overstressing of points and information is all the more a sin.
For an area that is fairly new to me, this book was engaging. It was informative and fairly entertaining to read. While there were times the author overstressed items and points, I still enjoyed this work as an intimate look into the life of an American literary icon and the impact the woman he loved had over him and his creativity. I would recommend this book to those looking for an informative and light read on a new topic.
Note: Book received for free from the publisher via a GoodReads giveaway in exchange for an honest review.
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July 18, 2016
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June 9, 2016
An interesting look at Melville's life and his affair with Mrs Morewood. However, the material might have made a better essay than a full-length book.
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February 6, 2020OMG! What a book! It will change forever the way you think of Melville... What a crazy story! What a crazy guy who falls for what a crazy woman, and does things that would make Henry James faint, and Edith Wharton have a heart attack if they happened in the 1880s... and here we are talking about the time he writes and publishes Moby Dick in 1850 - 51
They are both crazy, acting in ways that shock the whole Berkshire elegant society...
They are like people who want to be caught and exposed...
They are insane...
WHO KNEW? well I mean outside of everyone at the time!
And while he is gallivanting with this dark haired lover, a married woman, he is leaving his pregnant wife, the one whose wealthy father is the only thing keeping them from bankruptcy, at home feeling sick, nauseated AND abandoned!
If Melville had not been acting crazy like that he might have kept some literary friendships that would have helped save his reputation... It is all about this passionate affair that one of his friends savages him and his Whale novel in the newspapers and destroys any chance the book would have had (which I think was very limited anyway... Stendhal knew it would take 100 yrs for his work to be appreciated, I wish Melville knew French and had read Stendhal... maybe he would have been more patient... or felt better knowing that his time will come...)
A fantastic read... even if you are gaping all the way through, thinking MELVILLE THINK OF YOUR WORK, THINK OF YOUR OEUVRE, THINK OF YOUR BANK ACCOUNT... THINK, HERMAN, THINK!
They are both crazy, acting in ways that shock the whole Berkshire elegant society...
They are like people who want to be caught and exposed...
They are insane...
WHO KNEW? well I mean outside of everyone at the time!
And while he is gallivanting with this dark haired lover, a married woman, he is leaving his pregnant wife, the one whose wealthy father is the only thing keeping them from bankruptcy, at home feeling sick, nauseated AND abandoned!
If Melville had not been acting crazy like that he might have kept some literary friendships that would have helped save his reputation... It is all about this passionate affair that one of his friends savages him and his Whale novel in the newspapers and destroys any chance the book would have had (which I think was very limited anyway... Stendhal knew it would take 100 yrs for his work to be appreciated, I wish Melville knew French and had read Stendhal... maybe he would have been more patient... or felt better knowing that his time will come...)
A fantastic read... even if you are gaping all the way through, thinking MELVILLE THINK OF YOUR WORK, THINK OF YOUR OEUVRE, THINK OF YOUR BANK ACCOUNT... THINK, HERMAN, THINK!
June 3, 2019
4.5 stars
Melville in Love might be the most compelling biography of a writer I have ever read. Biographer Micheal Shelden has researched generously about a mostly hidden chapter in the life of American writer Herman Melville, but he goes beyond that. Shelden elucidates the novelist's life. Melville's decade-long love affair with a married woman helps explain a lot about the enigmatic writer and the explosion of creativity that the composition of Moby-Dick represents, among the greatest American novels ever. After I completed this biography, I wanted to read more of Melville's works.
Melville in Love also helps dispel a myth about the great writer. Melville is often seen as a brooding, stoic man of the sea, more longshoreman than adventurer. Turns out, he was anything but stoic, a man full of passionate intensity. Indeed, Melville was so ardent about writing, art and the life of the mind that it had a negative effect on Nathaniel Hawthorne, who could take his fellow author's personality only in small doses.
Though Melville in Love is not intended to be a full biography, it contains a lot of great background on the author. I did not know how much poetry he composed. Nor did I know that Melville jumped a ship in the South Pacific during his seafaring career and that he traveled across most of Europe and the Middle East, going as far as Jerusalem.
You'll fall in love with Melville in Love.
Melville in Love might be the most compelling biography of a writer I have ever read. Biographer Micheal Shelden has researched generously about a mostly hidden chapter in the life of American writer Herman Melville, but he goes beyond that. Shelden elucidates the novelist's life. Melville's decade-long love affair with a married woman helps explain a lot about the enigmatic writer and the explosion of creativity that the composition of Moby-Dick represents, among the greatest American novels ever. After I completed this biography, I wanted to read more of Melville's works.
Melville in Love also helps dispel a myth about the great writer. Melville is often seen as a brooding, stoic man of the sea, more longshoreman than adventurer. Turns out, he was anything but stoic, a man full of passionate intensity. Indeed, Melville was so ardent about writing, art and the life of the mind that it had a negative effect on Nathaniel Hawthorne, who could take his fellow author's personality only in small doses.
Though Melville in Love is not intended to be a full biography, it contains a lot of great background on the author. I did not know how much poetry he composed. Nor did I know that Melville jumped a ship in the South Pacific during his seafaring career and that he traveled across most of Europe and the Middle East, going as far as Jerusalem.
You'll fall in love with Melville in Love.
September 7, 2019
I honestly enjoyed this book more than I expected to. Certainly, Shelden does a fair amount of speculation but he makes a fairly convincing argument. What most harms the book, I think, is that he had to stretch this theory out into a full-length nonfiction book. Nevertheless, it is worth knowing more about Melville's time in the Berkshires, the relationship with his wife, and the enrapturing life of neighbor/romantic interest Sarah Moorewood.
He is able to find connections between Melville's writings and Morewood's influence, usually by looking extremely broadly at themes (Melville's "Pierre," for example, is often discussed themes of incest but, to Shelden, the book is more important for depicting, more generally, a forbidden love affair, such as one between two married neighbors). For me, perhaps most surprisingly, Sheldon makes a good argument for Melville's passionate albeit brief relationship with Nathaniel Hawthorne. His elevated language in letters to the older author may possibly an outlet to deflect the passion he was secretly feeling for Morewood. I am convinced there is truth in Shelden's theory, even if he is making some unnecessary or exaggerated connections to prove his point.
He is able to find connections between Melville's writings and Morewood's influence, usually by looking extremely broadly at themes (Melville's "Pierre," for example, is often discussed themes of incest but, to Shelden, the book is more important for depicting, more generally, a forbidden love affair, such as one between two married neighbors). For me, perhaps most surprisingly, Sheldon makes a good argument for Melville's passionate albeit brief relationship with Nathaniel Hawthorne. His elevated language in letters to the older author may possibly an outlet to deflect the passion he was secretly feeling for Morewood. I am convinced there is truth in Shelden's theory, even if he is making some unnecessary or exaggerated connections to prove his point.
March 20, 2023
"Of Course, A Female!" is the name of a chapter of The Magic Mountain, but the more anyone learns about Sarah Morewood, the more she is the missing puzzle piece to so many questions: why Melville moved his entire family to a farmhouse, why he borrowed so much to buy a mediocre place, why Moby-Dick went from being a "mostly done" "romantic, fanciful & literal & most enjoyable presentment of the Whale Fishery" to a book where, as Melville wrote in a letter to Mrs. Morewood, "a polar wind blows through it, and birds of prey hover over it."
This explains why Melville stayed in Pittsfield long after Hawthorne left his hated Lenox cottage, and explains why Pierre is dedicated to a mountain, unless you read between the lines and imagine it dedicated to the mountain where he dallied with Mrs. Morewood.
Apparently Michael Rogin was the first biographer to notice the M&M romance, in 1983, but no one seems to have done much about it until this book. Hershel Parker's mammoth biography has a lot of references to Morewood but seemed to miss what was really going on, except for a puzzling sentence "Somehow, in the next week or so Alfred Morewood was conceived." This book will explain that "somehow" and much more.
This explains why Melville stayed in Pittsfield long after Hawthorne left his hated Lenox cottage, and explains why Pierre is dedicated to a mountain, unless you read between the lines and imagine it dedicated to the mountain where he dallied with Mrs. Morewood.
Apparently Michael Rogin was the first biographer to notice the M&M romance, in 1983, but no one seems to have done much about it until this book. Hershel Parker's mammoth biography has a lot of references to Morewood but seemed to miss what was really going on, except for a puzzling sentence "Somehow, in the next week or so Alfred Morewood was conceived." This book will explain that "somehow" and much more.
August 7, 2024
Sheldon advances his case that Herman Melville has a romantic relationship with his married Berkshire neighbor Sarah Morewood. Mrs. Morewood chose to act in a somewhat unorthodox manner for the times which caused her to be a bit scandalous. Sheldon uses specific events, letters between the two, elements in Melville's fiction, and some of the writing of Mrs. Morewood to make his believable case. He further argues that this relationship fueled/inspired Melville to create his great work Moby Dick, which was poorly received at the time, permanently damaging his writing career. His passion for Sarah also led him to make poor financial choices to remain close to her. While there is not enough evidence to make the case ironclad, I believe Sheldon has proven his point. Reading this provides a quite different perspective into Melville's life and career. All in all, it is an interesting, though saddening account.
January 11, 2018
An excellent, moving account of Melville's life. 1850's Pittsfield in the Berkshires is the setting for his real life love affair - complicated, brazen, theatrical, romantic, tortured, desperate. His unrequited pursuit of passion and love is discreetly played out in 'Pierre, or the Ambiguities' and immortalized in his epic poem 'Clarel', and may reveal what drove him to conjure the madness of Ahab's character. He was able to work on 'Moby-Dick' in his comfortable farmhouse beside a fireplace that inspired its own allegorical love story in 'I am a Chimney'. Ultimately, 'Billy Budd' was his final crowning seafaring achievement.
"I have a sort of sea-feeling here in the country, now that the ground is covered with snow. I look out of my window in the morning when I rise as I would out of a port-hole of a ship in the Atlantic. My room seems a ship's cabin; & at nights when I wake up & hear the wind shrieking, I almost fancy there is too much sail on the house, & I had better go on the roof & rig in the chimney."
"I have a sort of sea-feeling here in the country, now that the ground is covered with snow. I look out of my window in the morning when I rise as I would out of a port-hole of a ship in the Atlantic. My room seems a ship's cabin; & at nights when I wake up & hear the wind shrieking, I almost fancy there is too much sail on the house, & I had better go on the roof & rig in the chimney."
October 3, 2018
What an interesting way to write a biography of Herman Melville and incorporate elements of his life during the writing of Moby Dick. Shelden integrated quotes from letters that had been written by Melville as well as to Melville to give us a private glimpse into his life. The author's description of the places and time were compelling to me as a reader. I appreciated all of the notes, as well as the bibliographic information included within the book. In my opinion Melville in Love was researched and written with a certain amount of expertise. You will have to read the book to see what love drove him to writing Moby Dick, along with the secret messages exchanged with him and the love of his life.
June 20, 2024
I began reading this book intrigued by the author's claim to have discovered something new about one of the most studied authors in the history of American literature. But by the time I finished the book I was not convinced that he had actually discovered much of anything. The "evidence" presented for a passionate affair between Melville and Sarah Morewood is less than convincing. And even if Melville had been romantically/sexually involved with his neighbor it is difficult to see any kind of connection between that and the masculine world of Moby-Dick. However it is not so hard to imagine such a connection with Pierre, the novel which Melville wrote after Moby-Dick. But in any case I don't think Shelden has proved his thesis.
January 12, 2019
I greatly enjoyed this look at Melville's life around the time he wrote "Moby Dick." Does Shelden prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Melville had a love affair with Sarah Morewood? I'd say he reaches around 80% certainty for me. I'm less convinced that she was his Muse for Moby Dick; that book was getting written with or without her. Shelden makes a better case for her being the inspiration for Melville's next book, "Pierre."
Nonetheless, it is a well researched and documented account of an author during the creation of a literary classic.
Nonetheless, it is a well researched and documented account of an author during the creation of a literary classic.
August 27, 2019
I have read Moby Dick (twice) but, I had never read a biography of Melville and there are many. I'm very happy that out of all the Melville biographies I read this one first. This short book explains a lot about how and why Moby Dick was written and how love played such an important part in all of it. Mr. Sheldon tells a spellbinding story of great love and great loss, all the more compelling as it is real.
I think now I will finally read Billy Budd as I will surely see it in a different way than I would have before reading Melville in Love.
I think now I will finally read Billy Budd as I will surely see it in a different way than I would have before reading Melville in Love.
January 22, 2022
A brilliant contrast between Melville's private life and public life; his life on the sea and his life on land. Focusing on his wife, mistress and writing, readers can feel Melville's emotional and literary struggles. What goes unsaid is the role of setting in Melville's personal life and books. The author does an admirable job of explaining why so many reviews of Moby Dick and Pierre were so brutally unfair. Any fan of Melville should read this book. It is a masterful biography, a love story and a tribute to literary struggle.
September 11, 2017
I really didn't think Shelden proves (beyond doubt) that Herman and Sarah had a sexual relationship. They certainly were close according to their writings but I thought there was too much speculation for a biography. It was very well researched and I liked reading more of how those New England writers lived. Melville made some bad choices but it was too bad that Moby-Dick was never recognized as great literature in his lifetime.
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