Melville, Herman 1819-1891 creator Weaver, Raymond M. (Raymond Melbourne) 1888-1948 text utu 2025 monographic en 1 online resource : multiple file formats "Billy Budd : and other prose pieces" by Herman Melville is a collection of prose pieces written in the late 19th century. Anchored by the short nautical novel Billy Budd, Foretopman, it centers on an innocent young sailor drawn into a moral conflict aboard a British warship during the age of mutiny, with the enigmatic master-at-arms John Claggart and the austere Captain Vere shaping his fate. Surrounding sketches and essays deepen Melville’s late-career preoccupations, but the signature tale probes innocence, authority, and latent malevolence at sea. The opening of the volume frames the title narrative: an editorial note and preface place the story in 1797 amid the Spithead and Nore mutinies, then introduce the archetype of the “Handsome Sailor” before focusing on Billy Budd, a foundling foretopman impressed from the merchantman Rights-of-Man into H.M.S. Indomitable. We meet Captain “Starry” Vere, an intellectual, self-contained commander, and the ship’s master-at-arms, John Claggart, whose covert antipathy toward Billy grows behind a courteous front. Early incidents show Billy’s natural goodness and naiveté—his effect as a peacemaker, his awe at shipboard discipline, and his failure to suspect malice—even as an old sailor (the Dansker) warns him that “Jemmy Legs” is “down on” him. Tension builds through small episodes: a soup-spilling scene with Claggart’s ambiguous compliment, petty harassments, and a secret nighttime approach by an afterguardsman hinting at a seditious “gang” and offering guineas—an overture Billy angrily rejects—while Claggart’s alternating smiles and hostile flashes suggest a deepening, mysterious enmity. (This is an automatically generated summary.) Billy Budd, foretopman -- Other prose pieces: Daniel Orme. Hawthorne and his mosses, by a Virginian spending a July in Vermont. Cock-a-doodle-doo! or The crowing of the noble Cock Beneventano. The two temples. Poor man's pudding and rich man's crumbs. The happy failure, a story of the river Hudson. The fiddler. The paradise of bachelors and the tartarus of maids. Jimmy Rose. The 'Gees. I and my chimney. The apple-tree table, or original spiritual manifestations. Under the rose. The marquis de Grandvin. Portrait of a gentleman. To Major John Gentian, dean of the Burgundy club. Jack Gentian. Major Gentian and Colonel J. Bunkum. The Cincinnati. Fragment. Fragments from a writing-desk. Release date is 2025-07-16 Chris Hapka and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.) Originally published: Edinburgh: Constable and Company Ltd, 1924 Sea stories Ship captains -- Fiction Executions and executioners -- Fiction Sailors -- Fiction Impressment -- Fiction PS Edinburgh: Constable and Company Ltd, 1924 24029693 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015077951914 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76513 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015077951914 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76513 UtSlPG 260607 20260610134754.0 76513