Adventure Fiction Cultural Encounter Imperialism Nature versus Civilization Survival
Typee: A Romance of the South Seas, also called Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life, is a adventure novel written by Herman Melville in 1846. It is Herman Melvile's first book.
This is a book about travels and adventures on the island of Nuku Hiva, in the Marquesas Islands of the South Pacific. It is partly based on Herman Melville's own experiences there, where he spent a month with his companion Toby Greene and decided to write about it.
The book intersperses adventurous fiction with factual commentary on the lives of the inhabitants of the Typee Valley. It details their customs, food, clothing and homes. This work brought Melville great fame and made him known as the man who lived among the cannibals.
The fictional story begins with the young sailors Tommo and Toby who decide to abandon the whaling ship they were traveling on in the Marquesas Islands. However, there they are attacked by the Typee cannibal tribe and flee through the jungle. They will be involved in a conflict between tribes where the Typee and the tribe of the neighboring valley Happar fight.
"Six months at sea! Yes, reader, as I live, six months out of sight of land; cruising after the sperm-whale beneath the scorching sun of the Line, and tossed on the billows of the wide-rolling Pacific—the sky above, the sea around, and nothing else! Weeks and weeks ago our fresh provisions were all exhausted."
#138 in Adventure (this month)
#334 in Literary fiction (this month)
The Typee: A Romance of the South Seas book is available for download in PDF, ePUB and Mobi:
Copyright info
Typee: A Romance of the South Seas by Herman Melville is believed to be in the public domain in the United States only. It may still be copyrighted in other countries. If you are not in the United States, please check your local laws to ensure this eBook is in the public domain in your country before downloading Typee: A Romance of the South Seas in PDF or ePub.
Paradise with shadows. A sailor finds beauty, hospitality, and captivity in a remote valley. Travel writing, adventure, and cultural encounter collide in vivid, uneasy pages.
Read it as early Melville and as a document to question: luscious description, suspense, and a colonial gaze worth discussing. Adventure that asks what seeing fairly requires.
Landscape as lure and trap.
Representation and wonder in tension.
Food, paths, and sea-light remembered.
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Sea, symbol, and obsession joined to democracy, risk, and doubt.
We have 8 books by Herman Melville in the AliceAndBooks library