The Piazza Tales Resources

A website devoted to Melville's life and work, with biographical information, excerpts from his novels and stories, criticism, history, and enough info to stuff a medium-sized whale.

The New Bedford Whaling Museum has posted a complete annotations of the short story "The Encantadas." Hugely helpful.

"The Piazza" is fiction, but Melville did have a house he probably looked out of sometimes. It was called Arrowhead, was located in Massachusetts, and is now a historical site. This is the associated website, which includes biographical information, exhibit discussions, news and more.

This is a list of online literary criticism, focusing on scholarly and peer-reviewed sources. If you want to start in to criticize Melville, for a paper or just because you feel he needs criticizing, this is a good place to begin.

A French adaptation of the novella.

There are a number of shorts and TV movie adaptations of Melville's short story. This is one of the few full length features, though; it's a British production set in 1970s London.

Set in the contemporary U.S. and featuring Crispin Glover, who seems like he was born to play Bartleby.

An account of the true story on which "Benito Cereno" was based.

An academic critical essay arguing that "Benito Cereno" wants you to identify with the slaves, not with the slavers.

An essay that looks at whether or not "Bartleby" is meant to have a political message.

A discussion of the context and meaning of "The Encantadas"

A look at style in "The Piazza" and other stories, and how it signals that the narrators are unreliable or confused.

A short version of "Benito Cereno", with cute drawings and ominous music.

A short video biography of Herman Melville.

A documentary about the Galapagos, or as Melville called them, the Encantadas.

An audio reading of Bartleby the Scrivener. It takes about an hour and a half.

An audio reading of "Benito Cereno". It takes about four hours.

This is a modern map, so the names of the islands aren't the ones Melville uses in "The Encantadas", but you can get a sense of what the islands look like, at least.

A painting of Melville

What Wall Street in New York would have looked like while Bartleby was working there.

The tortoise sees something interesting. Tortoises live long enough that this one might have been alive when Melville published The Piazza Tales.