Typee, Omoo, Mardi | 1,333 pages
Melville’s early romances about the South Seas: adventures among “cannibals,” Tahitians, and a mythical Polynesia.
Redburn, White-Jacket, Moby-Dick | 1,436 pages
Three masterful stories of the sea: a young sailor’s coming of age, a semi-autobiographical trip around Cape Horn, and Melville’s epic masterpiece.
Pierre, Israel Potter, The Confidence-Man, The Piazza Tales, Billy Budd, Uncollected Prose | 1,478 pages
Melville’s late fiction: a dark satire about urban life and letters, a scathing portrait of life in revolutionary America, a day in the life of riverboat con men, stories including “Bartleby the Scrivener,” and the posthumous tragedy, Billy Budd.