Redburn, His First Voyage

REDBURN, which Melville claimed he wrote solely for money, is a coming-of-age novel based on his first voyage in 1839 as part of the crew of a cotton-merchant ship en route to Liverpool. Like so many of Melville`s novels, REDBURN is about an inexperienced, and rather effete boy who is hardened and turned into a man by his adventures at sea. Its theme of the handsome young innocent encountering evil prefigures his great novella, BILLY BUDD. Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005. For personal use only. All rights reserved.