Moby-Dick Succeeded After Melville's Death

When American writer Herman Melville published Moby-Dick in 1851, the ambitious novel became a commercial failure, selling only about 3,000 copies during his lifetime. Melville died in 1891, and his work remained largely forgotten until scholars and modernist writers rediscovered the novel in the 1920s. Its shifting styles, collage-like structure, complexity, and ambiguity suddenly appeared decades ahead of their time, helping establish Melville as one of the 19th century's greatest writers.

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