My agency is in a building that was once the home of Herman Melville.
I attach proof.
He lived and died (of heart failure) here on September 28, 1891, aged seventy-two.
And as unimaginable as it might now seem, Melville died a forgotten man.
This from an article in the New York Publishers' Weekly, a year before his death:
Busy New York has no idea he is even alive, and one of the best-informed literary men in this country laughed recently at my statement that Herman Melville was his neighbor by only two city blocks. "Nonsense," said he. "Why, Melville is dead these many years!" Talk about literary fame? There's a sample of it!
If this was the fate of Melville—the author of arguably the greatest American novel ever written—what hope should lesser writers have?
Updike was right.
I attach proof.
He lived and died (of heart failure) here on September 28, 1891, aged seventy-two.
And as unimaginable as it might now seem, Melville died a forgotten man.
This from an article in the New York Publishers' Weekly, a year before his death:
Busy New York has no idea he is even alive, and one of the best-informed literary men in this country laughed recently at my statement that Herman Melville was his neighbor by only two city blocks. "Nonsense," said he. "Why, Melville is dead these many years!" Talk about literary fame? There's a sample of it!
If this was the fate of Melville—the author of arguably the greatest American novel ever written—what hope should lesser writers have?
Updike was right.
PS: It's remarkable that around the time of his death, the handful of people who did remember Melville did so for his novel Typee, not Moby-Dick.
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