Evelev, J: Tolerable Entertainment

A fresh look at the social context of a great American writer In TolerableEntertainment, Herman Melville's life and literary work serve as windowson the tumultuous world of antebellum New York City. Charting Melville'swritings from Typee (1846) to Pierre (1852) as responses to hisexperience of living in the city, this book reveals the dramatic shifts inAmerican life occurring at the time. Perhaps more than any othernineteenth-century writer, Melville has been read and understood in thecontext of his career, embodied in a narrative of the trajectory fromimmature emergence, through brilliant ascendance, to collapse intoneglect.