Wikipedia page about this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mardi

Release date is 2004-10-12

Geoff Palmer

"Mardi: and a Voyage Thither" by Herman Melville is a novel published in 1849. Melville's first purely fictional work begins as a South Pacific adventure when an American sailor abandons his whaling vessel. The narrative transforms unexpectedly—from escape story to romance when the narrator encounters a mysterious woman, then into a philosophical quest through an allegorical archipelago. As the woman vanishes, the search becomes a vehicle for exploring political structures, religious practices, and fundamental questions about truth, certainty, and existence itself. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Original publication data not identified