Melville's Uncollected Prose

Seven years before Typee made him a literary celebrity, Melville became a published author with the submission of two short fiction pieces to a local periodical. He would return to writing short prose at the height of his fame (1847-1850), when his friendship with the Duyckinck brothers led him to contribute a number of reviews to their Literary World; and again in the years of disillusionment following the failure of Pierre, when he abandoned full-length novels and wrote solely for Harper's and Putnam's monthly literary magazines.

Due to their size, Melville's uncollected prose works will shortly be made available here in their entirety. Since the short pieces appearing in literary magazines did not, as a general rule, receive a great deal of notice from critics, no contemporary reviews have been included (but will appear at a later date if any can be located).

• Fragments from a Writing Desk, No. 1 (Published in Democratic Press, and Lansingburgh Advertiser, May 4 1839)
• Fragments from a Writing Desk, No. 2 (Published in Democratic Press, and Lansingburgh Advertiser, May 18 1839)
• Etchings of a Whaling Cruise (Published in New York Literary World, March 6 1847)
• Authentic Anecdotes of "Old Zack" (Published in Yankee Doodle, II, weekly (September 4 excepted) from July 24 to September 11 1847)
• Mr Parkman's Tour (Published in New York Literary World, March 31 1849)
• Cooper's New Novel (Published in New York Literary World, April 28 1849)
• A Thought on Book-Binding (Published in New York Literary World, March 16 1850)
• Hawthorne and His Mosses (Published in New York Literary World, August 17 and August 24 1850)
• Cock-A-Doodle-Doo! (Published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, December 1853)
• Poor Man's Pudding and Rich Man's Crumbs (Published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, June 1854)
• The Happy Failure (Published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, July 1854)
• The Fiddler (Published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, September 1854)
• The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids (Published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, April 1855)
• Jimmy Rose (Published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, November 1855)
• The 'Gees (Published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, March 1856)
• I and My Chimney (Published in Putnam's Monthly Magazine, March 1856)
• The Apple-Tree Table (Published in Putnam's Monthly Magazine, May 1856)
• The Two Temples (unpublished in Melville's lifetime)

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