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He was born in New York City on August 1, 1819
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In January of 1841 Melville undertook a second voyage on the whaler Acushnet from New Bedford to the South Seas.
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Returned to America as a sailor on the United States, reaching Boston in 1844
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Melville's adventures in this area became the basis for his first novel, Typee
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Melville's second novel, Omoo (1847)
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In August 1847 Melville married Elizabeth Shaw
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Melville publishes two novels this year, Mardi and Redburn. The Melvilles' first child, son Malcolm, is born.
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IN 1851 Melville published his most renowned novel, Moby Dick.
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The New York Day Book on September 8, 1852, published a venomous attack on Melville and his writings headlined HERMAN MELVILLE CRAZY.
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3rd child, Elizabeth is born
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Fourth and final child, Frances is born
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On April 1, 1857, Melville published his last full-length novel, The Confidence-Man.
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Melville agrees to sail around the Cape Horn with his brother Thomas, the captain of a clipper ship. He makes it to San Francisco before changing his mind about the voyage and returning home in November.
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Deeply in debt and behind on his mortgage payments, Melville is forced to sell Arrowhead to his brother Allan. He moves with his family back to New York City.
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Melville visits the front lines of the Civil War, an experience that leaves a deep impression him.
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After the end of the American Civil War, he published Battle Pieces and Aspects of the War, (1866) a collection of over 70 poems that generally was ignored by the critics, though a few gave him patronizingly favorable reviews.
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In 1867, his oldest son, Malcolm, shot himself,
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Melville spent years writing a 16,000-line epic poem, Clarel, inspired by his earlier trip to the Holy Land. His uncle, Peter Gansevoort, by a bequest, paid for the publication of the massive epic in 1876.
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Melville's son Stanwix dies of tuberculosis in San Francisco.
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Melville retired in 1886,
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Melville's final novel, Billy Budd, Sailor, is published, helping to rehabilitate Melville's legacy as a great writer. The finished but unpublished manuscript was found in Melville's desk after his death.