One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'

Though best-known for his epic masterpieceMoby-Dick, Herman Melville also left a body of short stories arguably unmatched in American fiction. In the sorrowful tragedy ofBilly Budd,Sailor; the controlled rage ofBenito Cereno; and the tantalizing enigma ofBartleby, the Scrivener; Melville reveals himself as a singular storyteller of tremendous range and compelling power. In these stories, Melville cuts to the heart of race, class, capitalism, and globalism in America, deftly navigating political and social issues that resonate as clearly in our time as they did in Melville's. Also includingThe Piazza Talesin full, this collection demonstrates why Melville stands not only among the greatest writers of the nineteenth century, but also as one of our greatest contemporaries.

This Penguin Classics edition features the Reading Text ofBilly Budd, Sailor, as edited from a genetic study of the manuscript by Harrison Hayford and Merton M. Sealts, Jr., and the authoritative Northwestern-Newberry text ofThe Piazza Tales.