Evening journal., 1912-02-08
NEW NEWS OF YESTERDAY
The Classic That Inspired a
Famous ROmaRCs,
By Holland

To any one familiar with the litera-
ture of the United States in what were
the palmy days of Holmes, Emerson
and others Of the Boston group, and
FitzGreene Halleck, Washington lry-
ing, n. p Willis and Edgar Allan Poe,
the name of Herman Melville viii at
once be recognized as that of pos
sibly the most brilliant, and certainly
the most popular, OF the writer's OF ro-
mances of that time. He it was who
wrote White Jacket" in 1850, in
which the horrors of fogging in the
navy We're so graphically described
that the abolition Of the practice soon
followed. Many romances came from
his pen between the years 1886 and
1862, but Of all of them the first was
the greatest-"Typee. IL was the lit
erary sensation of the day, and on it
today rests its authors claim to per
manent literary fame.
q suppose that until Harriet Beech
er Stowe wrote Uncle Toms Cabin,
there was no work by an American, in
the nature of romance, which equal
ed in popularity Herman Melvilles
'Typee,'" said to me the late Charles
f. Briggs, a contemporary of Melville,
himself a famous novelist of that time
and a co-worker of Edgar Allan Poe
on the New York Broadway Journal
ut was not only popular in the United
States, but it also attracted general
attention in England, and was, l be-
lieve, translated into French and Ger
man.
Melville took employment in the
New York custom house in the late
sixties, and one day, when l was chat
ting with him there, asked him what
had inspired him to write his great
romance.
AS a boy he said, I was fond of
the sea. | expected to become sailor
/ had an ambition to become captain
of one of the ships owned by Boston
merchants and engaged in the China
trade In a spirit of adventure, | ship
ned as a sailor before the mast on a
vessel which was to sail around Cape
Horn for the Sandwich Islands. l was
brutally treated by the captain, and
with "a companion deserted the ship as
she lay at anchor off one of the South
Sea Islands of the Marquesas group.
My companion and | were cap
tured by the savages of the island,
with whom the word 'typee" meant
friend. l did not know it.; but when
they approached the chief shouted to
me, using the word "typee,' and ] re-
peated it. l afterward found that it
was BY good chance that / did So;
that otherwise | would have been kill
ed and probably eaten. My companion
and / We're on that island nearly half
a year. when a friendly ship appeared
and took us away.
Il was narrating my adventures,
some of which were very thrilling and
all of which were new, to some of the
sailors upon this ship, when / was
asked by one of them if / had ever
read Dana's book, 1.-TWO Years Before
the Mast | replied that l had and
had been fascinated by it. Then the
sailor told me that I had material for
a better hOOk-because the adventures
we're more thrilling-than Dana had
| That gave me the inspiration to write
the story of my adventures; and as
wrote along I found that was doinl
It very we'll.
"'I had no idea, however, when the
book was first published that it would
attain the popularity it did | might
have written a story, even had I no
been inspired to do that by Dana''
book But the fact remains that my
book "Typee" was originally suggested
by Dana's book. | wish | could hop'
that it would become as great a clas
sic as Dana's book has become
Copyright. 1912, by e ]. Edawrds. Al
rights reservedl
Tomorrow Mr.. Edwards will tell o
] "a Ilnr.nnnnn of tho I.aW y