ve of a Four
Months' Residence among the Natives of a Valley of the Marquesas
Islands; or, a Peep at Polynesian Life,' or, more briefly, 'Melville's
Marquesas Islands.' It was issued in America with the author's own
title, 'Typee,' and in the outward shape of a work of fiction. Mr.
Melville found himself famous at once. Many discussions were carried on
as to the genuineness of the author's name and the reality of the events
portrayed, but English and American critics alike recognised the book's
importance as a contribution to literature.

Melville, in a letter to Hawthorne, speaks of himself as having no
development at all until his twenty-fifth year, the time of his return
from the Pacific; but surely the process of development must have been
well advanced to permit of so virile and artistic a creation as 'Typee.'
While the narrative does not always run smoothly, yet the style for the
most part is graceful and alluring, so that we pass from one scene of
Pacific enchantment to another quite oblivious of the vast amount of
descriptive detail which is being poured out upon us. It is the varying
fortune of the hero which engrosses our attention. We follow his
adventures with breathless interest, or luxuriate with him in the leafy
bowers of the 'Happy Valley,' surrounded by joyous children of nature.
When all is ended, we then for the first time realise that we know these
people and their ways as if we too had dwelt among them.

I do not believe that 'Typee' will ever lose its position as a classic
of American Literature. The pioneer in South Sea romance--for
the mechanical descriptions of earlier voyagers are not worthy of
comparison--this book has as yet met with no superior, even in French
literature; nor has it met with a rival in any other language than the
French. The character of 'Fayaway,' and, no less, William S. Mayo's
'Kaloolah,' the enchanting dreams of many a youthful heart, will retain
their charm; and this in spite of endless variations by modern explorers
in the same domain. A faint type of both characters may be found in the
Surinam Yarico of Captain John Gabriel Stedman, whose 'Narrative of a
Five Years' Expedition' appeared in 1796.

'Typee,' as written, contained passages reflecting with considerable
severity on the methods pursued by missionaries in the South Seas. The
manuscript was printed in a complete form in England, and created much
discussion on this account, Melville being accused of bitternes