Billy Budd and other prose pieces
By: by Herman Melville ; edited by Raymond W. Weaver
Contributors: Weaver, Raymond M. (Raymond Melbourne), 1888-1948, editor
Edition: Standard edition.
Series: The Works of Herman Melville, standard edition -- v. 13
Publisher: Russell & Russell
Published: 1963
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 399
Subjects: Executions and executioners; Fiction; Ship captains; Impressment; Sailors
Description: Billy Budd: Billy Budd is a seaman impressed into service aboard HMS Bellipotent in the year 1797, when the Royal Navy was reeling from two major mutinies and was threatened by the Revolutionary French Republic's military ambitions. Billy, a foundling from Bristol, has an innocence, good looks and a natural charisma that make him popular with the crew. His only physical defect is a stutter which grows worse when under intense emotion. Billy arouses the antagonism of the ship's master-at-arms, John Claggart, who eventually falsely charge Billy with conspiracy to mutiny. Claggart makes his case and Billy, astounded, is unable to respond, due to his stutter. In his extreme frustration he strikes out at Claggart, killing him instantly, and Billy must undergo a court-marshal.
Notes: Reprint of the 1924 ed. published by Constable, London.
Table of contents: title: Billy Budd, foretopman --; title: Daniel Orme --; title: Hawthorne and his mosses, by a Virginian spending a July in Vermont --; title: Cock-o-doodle-doo! or, The crowing of the noble Cock Beneventano --; title: The two temples --; title: Poor man's pudding and rich man's crumbs --; title: The happy failure, a story of the River Hudson --; title: The fiddler --; title: The Paradise of bachelors and the Tartarus of maids --; title: Jimmy Rose --; title: The 'Gees --; title: I and my chimney --; title: The apple-tree table, or, Original spiritual manifestations --; title: Under the rose --; title: The marquis de Grandvin --; title: Portrait of a gentleman --; title: To Major John Gentian, Dean of the Burgundy Club --; title: Jack Gentian --; title: Major Gentian and Colonel J. Bunkum --; title: The Cincinnati --; title: Fragment --; title: Fragments from a writing-desk.