Description:
The only stand-alone student edition of Melville's influential story collection.
Review Quotes:
"At last! Although the stories in The Piazza Tales have been collected and anthologized before, only in this version, with Brian Yothers's meticulous editing, general introduction, and selection of contextual readings, do we get the book Herman Melville envisioned--for twenty-first-century readers and students. Yothers presents a seasoned novelist, but an experimental writer of tales, laboring within a hectic magazine economy and changing literary history forever. He also exhibits a Melville who responds vigorously to contemporary debates over slavery, urbanization, capitalism, and changing gender roles, and who engages with nineteenth-century science, philosophy, and religion, as well as with a transatlantic cast of canonical and popular authors. Prepare to be delighted and surprised by a Melville you may not have known existed." -- Wyn Kelley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
"In this new Broadview Press edition of Melville's original 1856 version of The Piazza Tales, Brian Yothers provides a valuable classroom edition that includes reviews, sources and allusions, and other contemporary writings on the art of the story, on slavery and inequality, on science and philosophy, and on other topics of importance to an understanding of the diverse worlds embodied in these tales. Yothers's illuminating introduction highlights the distinctive character of each of the stories while adroitly placing them in the context of Melville's personal history and career as a fiction writer and poet, making an eloquent case for reading all six stories together for their imaginative variety and skillful artistry. For teachers of Melville, this compact volume fills a long-standing need." -- Christopher Sten, George Washington University
"This new edition makes a strong claim to become the Piazza Tales of choice in the undergraduate classroom. ... The appendices feature many inspired choices that will amplify the literary and historical resonance of The Piazza Tales without encumbering students with lengthy supplementary readings." -- Dawn Coleman, Leviathan