United States or Panama ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
His head was as bald as the polished surface of a cocoanut shell, which article it precisely resembled in smoothness and colour, while a long silvery beard swept almost to his girdle of bark. Encircling his temples was a bandeau of the twisted leaves of the Omoo tree, pressed closely over the brows to shield his feeble vision from the glare of the sun.
You see them perched aloft among the immovable boughs of the majestic bread-fruit trees, or gently swaying on the elastic branches of the Omoo; skimming over the palmetto thatching of the bamboo huts; passing like spirits on the wing through the shadows of the grove, and sometimes descending into the bosom of the valley in gleaming flights from the mountains.
I have said that "Omoo" and "Typee," the books in which the sailor Melville describes his life among the Otaheitans, have sunk too rapidly into obscurity. What a charming and interesting task there is for some critic of catholic tastes and sympathetic judgment to undertake rescue work among the lost books which would repay salvage!
I have 'Typee, 'Omoo, 'Redburn, and that noble piece 'Moby Dick. These are all I have been able to obtain. There have been many editions of your works in this country, particularly the lovely South Sea sketches; but the editions are not equal to those of the American publishers. Your reputation here is very great.
T. M. Coan has styled his 'anxious paradise, 'Typee' ends, and its sequel, 'Omoo, begins. Here, again, it seems wisest to leave the remaining adventures in the South Seas to the reader's own discovery, simply stating that, after a sojourn at the Society Islands, Melville shipped for Honolulu. There he remained for four months, employed as a clerk.
The success of his first volume encouraged Melville to proceed in his work, and 'Omoo, the sequel to 'Typee, appeared in England and America in 1847. Here we leave, for the most part, the dreamy pictures of island life, and find ourselves sharing the extremely realistic discomforts of a Sydney whaler in the early forties.
His head was as bald as the polished surface of a cocoa-nut shell, which article it precisely resembled in smoothness and colour, while a long silvery beard swept almost to his girdle of bark. Encircling his temples was a bandeau of the twisted leaves of the Omoo tree, pressed closely over the brows to shield his feeble vision from the glare of the sun.
In the editing of this reissue of 'Melville's Works, I have been much indebted to the scholarly aid of Dr. Titus Munson Coan, whose familiarity with the languages of the Pacific has enabled me to harmonise the spelling of foreign words in 'Typee' and 'Omoo, though without changing the phonetic method of printing adopted by Mr. Melville. Dr.
You see them perched aloft among the immovable boughs of the majestic bread-fruit trees, or gently swaying on the elastic branches of the Omoo; skimming over the palmetto-thatching of the bamboo huts; passing like spirits on the wing through the shadows of the grove, and sometimes descending into the bosom of the valley in gleaming flights from the mountains.
Then throw in one of Melville's Otaheite books now far too completely forgotten "Typee" or "Omoo," and as a quite modern flavour Kipling's "Captains Courageous" and Jack London's "Sea Wolf," with Conrad's "Nigger of the Narcissus." Then you will have enough to turn your study into a cabin and bring the wash and surge to your cars, if written words can do it.
Word Of The Day