Typee
Subtitle: A Peep at Polynesian Life (Penguin Classics)
Contributors: John Bryant (Commentary, Introduction)
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Published: January 1, 1996
Language: eng
Number of pages: 368
ISBN-13: 9780140434880
First sentence: SIX MONTHS AT SEA! Yes, reader, as I live, six months out of sight of land; cruising after the sperm-whale beneath the scorching sun of the Line, and tossed on the billows of the wide-rolling Pacific-the sky above, the sea around, and nothing else!
Description: At one time the most popular of Melville's works, Typee was known as a travelogue that idealized and romanticized a mysterious South Sea island for readers in the ruthless, industrial, "civilized" world of the nineteenth century.

But Melville's story of Tommo, the Yankee sailor who enters the flawed Pacific paradise of Nuku Hiva, is also a fast-moving adventure tale, an autobiographical account of the author's own Polynesian stay, an examination of the nature of good and evil, and a frank exploration of sensuality and exotic ritual. This edition of Typee, which reproduces the definitive text and the complete, never-before-published manuscript reading text, includes invaluable explanatory commentary by John Bryant.