s; but he
asserted his lack of prejudice. The passages referred to were omitted in
the first and all subsequent American editions. They have been restored
in the present issue, which is complete save for a few paragraphs
excluded by written direction of the author. I have, with the consent
of his family, changed the long and cumbersome sub-title of the book,
calling it a 'Real-Romance of the South Seas,' as best expressing its
nature.

The success of his first volume encouraged Melville to proceed in his
work, and 'Omoo,' the sequel to 'Typee,' appeared in England and America
in 1847. Here we leave, for the most part, the dreamy pictures of island
life, and find ourselves sharing the extremely realistic discomforts of
a Sydney whaler in the early forties. The rebellious crew's experiences
in the Society Islands are quite as realistic as events on board ship
and very entertaining, while the whimsical character, Dr. Long Ghost,
next to Captain Ahab in 'Moby Dick,' is Melville's most striking
delineation. The errors of the South Sea missions are pointed out with
even more force than in 'Typee,' and it is a fact that both these books
have ever since been of the greatest value to outgoing missionaries on
account of the exact information contained in them with respect to the
islanders.

Melville's power in describing and investing with romance scenes and
incidents witnessed and participated in by himself, and his frequent
failure of success as an inventor of characters and situations, were
early pointed out by his critics. More recently Mr. Henry S. Salt
has drawn the same distinction very carefully in an excellent article
contributed to the Scottish Art Review. In a prefatory note to 'Mardi'
(1849), Melville declares that, as his former books have been received
as romance instead of reality, he will now try his hand at pure fiction.
'Mardi' may be called a splendid failure. It must have been soon after
the completion of 'Omoo' that Melville began to study the writings of
Sir Thomas Browne. Heretofore our author's style was rough in places,
but marvellously simple and direct. 'Mardi' is burdened with an
over-rich diction, which Melville never entirely outgrew. The scene
of this romance, which opens well, is laid in the South Seas, but
everything soon becomes overdrawn and fantastical, and the thread of the
story loses itself in a mystical allegory.

'Redburn,' already mentioned, succeeded 'Mardi' in the same year, and
was