R.I.P., Herman Melville

There has died and been buried in this city, during the current week, at an advanced age, a man who is so little known, even by name, to the generation now in the vigor of life that only one newspaper contained an obituary account of him, and this was but of three or four lines… When a visiting British writer a few years ago inquired at a gathering in New-York of distinctly literary Americans what had become of Herman Melville, not only was there not one among them who was able to tell him, but there was scarcely one among them who had ever heard of the man concerning whom he inquired… Years ago the books by which Melville’s reputation had been made had long been out of print and out of demand… and he has died an absolutely forgotten man.

— Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick, died 120 years ago today and hardly anyone noticed.

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