Israel Potter
Subtitle: His Fifty Years of Exile
Contributors: Robert Levine (Editor, Introduction)
Publisher: Penguin Classics; Penguin Books
Published: March 25, 2008
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 288
ISBN-13: 9780143105237
Subjects: Classics; Literary; Sea Stories; Fiction / Literary; Fiction; Literature - Classics / Criticism
Description: "Based on the life of an actual soldier who claimed to have fought at Bunker Hill, Israel Potter is unique among Herman Melville's books: It is a novel in the guise of a biography. In telling the story of Israel Potter's fall from Revolutionary War hero to peddler on the streets of London, Melville alternated between invented scenes and historical episodes, granting cameos to such famous men of the era as Benjamin Franklin (Potter may have been his secret courier) and John Paul Jones, and providing a portrait of the American Revolution as the rollicking adventure and violent series of events that it really was." "This edition of Israel Potter, which reproduces the definitive text, includes selections from Potter's autobiography, Life and Remarkable Adventures of Israel R. Potter, the basis for Melville's novel."--BOOK JACKET.