deaths
September 28, 1891
Herman Melville, American author and poet (born 1819)
Herman Melville
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are Moby-Dick (1851); Typee (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia; and Billy Budd, Sailor, a posthumously published novella. At the time of his death Melville was not well known to the public, but 1919, the centennial of his birth, was the starting point of a Melville revival. Moby-Dick would eventually be considered one of the great American novels.