Herman Melville.

Heller, Arno Herman Melville. Darmstadt Lambert Schneider 2017 320pp. 14 Fig. Hb. € 29.95 10 3650401894

A biography on Herman Melville is no novelty in itself, and Arno Heller makes this very clear in his introduction, where he includes a short overview of the most notable Melville biographies to date. This overview of the books that Heller consulted already suggests that the writing of this new biography, and the research conducted for it, must have been a "Herculean task" – to use Heller's own words for Melville's writing of his famous Moby-Dick (1851). Heller makes it very clear that the aim of his own biography is not to "excavate new 'facts' in archives and private collections, but to bring the material and results of several decades of American and international research on Melville closer to German-speaking readers in a lively narrative form" (Heller 2017, 9; my translation).

As such, the book definitely succeeds. It is a concise yet complete overview of Melville's life, skillfully intertwined with valuable insights into his literary output, i.e. the writing processes behind Melville's famous and not-so-famous works, their reception, and their significance for literary history. Written in German, the book addresses a broad reading audience, but does not need to shy away from experts in American literature. First and foremost, however, it is ideal for students of literature. Through the many cross-references to Melville's contemporaries (most notably his personal acquaintance and supporter Nathaniel Hawthorne, but also Washington Irving, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, Mark Twain, and many more), and the juxtapositions of Melville's work with theirs, it also serves, en passant, as a useful reminder of a broader nineteenth-century American literary history.

Although Heller writes that Melville's life was relatively uneventful, in particular compared to some other American authors of his era, like Mark Twain, Walt Whitman or Jack London, he manages to portray this life in a thrilling, novel-like fashion that makes it hard to put this book down. As in his previous books, his 'trilogy' of high-profile historico-cultural travel guides about the American Southwest, Northwest and California, and New England (Amerikanischer Südwesten, 2006; Amerikanischer Nordwesten und Kalifornien, 2010; Wo sich Amerika erfand: Große Erinnerungsorte in Nordengland, 2015), Heller makes people, places, and events come alive in a narrative and entertaining way (I suspect that some of his descriptions are so lively because the author visited these places in person). He is never merely speculative but relativizes and points to uncertainties in the history of Melville's life, in particular when biographical data has been retrieved from Melville's own semi-autobiographical literary works, where the lines between fact and fiction become blurred.

Despite the fact that the book's agenda is to represent Melville and his work as an entity, which it frequently does by jumping back and forth between clear documentation material and presumed autobiographical narration, it is astonishingly linear. It has a chronological order, with chapters divided clearly by year and life stages, rather than by the American author's literary creations. This is even the case with the first three chapters, in which Melville's biography is largely reconstructed through Redburn (1849) and his early South sea-novels Typee (1846), Omoo (1847) and Mardi (1849). From chapter four onwards ("A magnum opus evolves (1850–1851)"), the description of biographical facts runs parallel with the history of Melville's literary work, while being more clearly separated from it. It is this chapter and the next that cover the genesis of Moby-Dick, which the reader has probably been waiting for.

To those already familiar with the content and significance of Melville's masterpiece and his popular early adventure novels, the following chapters, six to eleven, will provide the most exciting and revealing part of the book. They contextualize Melville's lesser-known writings, including the obscure novel Pierre (1852), the short stories – above all "Bartleby the Scrivener" (1853) and Heller's personal favorite, "Benito Cereno" (1855) – the demystifying novels Israel Potter (1855) and The Confidence-Man (1857), and his almost forgotten poetry, in particular the Battle-Pieces (1866) and Melville's hoped-for magnum opus, the epic poem Clarel (1876). The excellent readings of these little known works constitute the greatest strength of Heller's new Melville biography.

The last chapter is particularly helpful as well, since it provides a concise overview of the vast reception of Melville's work in literary studies and beyond. From the rediscovery of Melville in the 1920s, to the inclusion of Moby-Dick in the American literary canon, to meta-studies on Melville research, this short chapter mentions all notable names and research trends on Melville in the last 100 years. It closes with a short note on the reception of the American author and his work in popular culture, and a concluding estimation of Melville's persona and his continuing role in literature and culture. With this, the book elegantly comes full circle. An appendix with a biographical timeline and an extensive bibliography complement Arno Heller's Herman Melville.

Only one drawback slightly dampens the pleasure of reading this book. The many quotes from Melville's writings are only available in German translations. These translations are skillfully done, but create a desire for foot- or endnotes with the English originals. This is the case in particular when the quotes serve to illustrate Melville's literary and linguistic skill. However, I suspect that this was a publisher specification, as the comparable Jack London biography by Alfred Hornung recently published by Lambert Schneider does the same (Jack London: Abenteuer des Lebens, 2016). One last detail: The actor who played Queequeg in the 1956 film adaption Moby Dick by John Huston (discussed in the final chapter) was not Yul Brunner, but the Austrian-born Friedrich von Ledebur (Heller 2017, 297).

In sum, Heller's new Melville biography is an excellent and desirable publication: a new and up-to-date Melville biography in German, well researched, comprehensive, and as exciting to read as fiction. Students, scholars, and a general public will find this book highly readable and useful.