{"id":"01KG8AM2S3B2HZKBVTMS5NAEAN","cid":"bafkreiaq2nrvgiyyh5isps5xqiwyy3ay24i6ni24qvdaj4j54msspzveq4","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":234,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:25.200Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG89J1JYRSHWXR7JM0HYS9D4","start_line":177,"text":"results has said in ‘Moby Dick,’--\r\n\r\n‘If I shall ever deserve any real repute in that small but high hushed\r\nworld which I might not be unreasonably ambitious of; if hereafter I\r\nshall do anything that on the whole a man might rather have done than to\r\nhave left undone... then here I prospectively ascribe all the honour\r\nand the glory to whaling; for a whale-ship was my Yale College and my\r\nHarvard.’\r\n\r\nThe record, then, of Melville’s escape from the Dolly, otherwise the\r\nAcushnet, the sojourn of his companion Toby and himself in the Typee\r\nValley on the island of Nukuheva, Toby’s mysterious disappearance, and\r\nMelville’s own escape, is fully given in the succeeding pages; and rash\r\nindeed would he be who would enter into a descriptive contest with these\r\ninimitable pictures of aboriginal life in the ‘Happy Valley.’ So great\r\nan interest has always centred in the character of Toby, whose actual\r\nexistence has been questioned, that I am glad to be able to declare him\r\nan authentic personage, by name Richard T. Greene. He was enabled to\r\ndiscover himself again to Mr. Melville through the publication of the\r\npresent volume, and their acquaintance was renewed, lasting for quite\r\na long period. I have seen his portrait,--a rare old daguerrotype,--and\r\nsome of his letters to our author. One of his children was named for the\r\nlatter, but Mr. Melville lost trace of him in recent years.\r\n\r\nWith the author’s rescue from what Dr. T. M. Coan has styled his\r\n‘anxious paradise,’ ‘Typee’ ends, and its sequel, ‘Omoo,’ begins. Here,\r\nagain, it seems wisest to leave the remaining adventures in the South\r\nSeas to the reader’s own discovery, simply stating that, after a sojourn\r\nat the Society Islands, Melville shipped for Honolulu. There he remained\r\nfor four months, employed as a clerk. He joined the crew of the American\r\nfrigate United States, which reached Boston, stopping on the way at one\r\nof the Peruvian ports, in October of 1844. Once more was a narrative\r\nof his experiences to be preserved in ‘White Jacket; or, the World in\r\na Man-of-War.’ Thus, of Melville’s four most important books, three,\r\n‘Typee,’ ‘Omoo,’ and ‘White-Jacket,’ are directly auto biographical,\r\nand ‘Moby Dick’ is partially so; while the less important ‘Redburn’ is\r\nbetween the two classes in this respect. Melville’s other prose works,\r\nas will be shown, were, with some exceptions, unsuccessful efforts at\r\ncreative romance.\r\n\r\nWhether our author entered on his whaling adventures in the South Seas\r\nwith a determination to make them available for literary purposes, may\r\nnever be certainly known. There was no such elaborate announcement or\r\nadvance preparation as in some later cases. I am inclined to believe\r\nthat the literary prospect was an after-thought, and that this insured\r\na freshness and enthusiasm of style not otherwise to be attained.\r\nReturning to his mother’s home at Lansingburg, Melville soon began the\r\nwriting of ‘Typee,’ which was completed by the autumn of 1845. Shortly\r\nafter this his older brother, Gansevoort Melville, sailed for England\r\nas secretary of legation to Ambassador McLane, and the manuscript was\r\nintrusted to Gansevoort for submission to John Murray. Its immediate\r\nacceptance and publication followed in 1846. ‘Typee’ was dedicated to\r\nChief Justice Lemuel Shaw of Massachusetts, an old friendship between\r\nthe author’s family and that of Justice Shaw having been renewed about\r\nthis time. Mr. Melville became engaged to Miss Elizabeth Shaw, the only\r\ndaughter of the Chief Justice, and their marriage followed on August 4,\r\n1847, in Boston.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJPEC98TTS3YB9XGWRJ1C","peer_type":"frontmatter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JYRSHWXR7JM0HYS9D4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AM2RXYRN3FTNKYDZQJ78Y","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AM2S390GVF38FGADNBM9M","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:25.379Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:32.528Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}