| The text of Selected Poems of Herman Melville is based upon first editions of Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866), Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land (1876), John Marr and Other Sailors with Some Sea-Pieces (1888), Timoleon Etc. (1891) and, for the poetry unpublished at the time of his death, upon Melville's manuscripts. To establish the text I made use of copies of John Marr and Timoleon in the University of Texas Library, of Clarel in the Library Company of Philadelphia, and of the Melville manuscript collection in the Houghton Library of Harvard University. For permission to use these materials I am very grateful. I also wish to acknowledge the kindness of the Princeton University Press for permission to quote from Melville's Journal of a Visit to Europe and the Levant: October 11, 1856-May 6, 1857 (1955), edited by Howard C. Horsford. |
| Among the many students of Melville whose contributions are reflected in this book, I should like to state my particular indebtedness to Howard Vincent, Merton M. Sealts, Richard H. Fogle, Walter E. Bezanson, Laurence Barrett, and Jack Capps. |
| Primary sources which have been especially helpful to me include Jay Leyda's The Melville Log: A Documentary Life of Herman Melville 1819-1891 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1951), Merton M. Sealts' Melville as Lecturer (Harvard University Press, 1957), The Letters of Herman Melville, edited by Merrell R. Davis and William H. Gilman (Yale University Press, 1960), and Journal of a Visit to London and the Continent by Herman Melville: 1849-1850, edited by Eleanor Melville Metcalfe (Harvard University Press, 1948). |
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