Herman Melville (born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are Moby-Dick (1851); Typee (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia; and Billy Budd, Sailor, a posthumously published novella....
A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things.
If this be not love, it is madness, and then it is pardonable.
—Louis de Bernières in Captain Corelli's Mandolin