Whether it is the simple narrative or the dramatic suspense of impending doom that holds the reader, Typee offers a flowing romantic atmosphere of timeless days, pointless endeavor, and mindless existence.

The fact that Typee and Omoo have survived in the estimation of critics is testimony to Melville’s art even in those early stages of his development. The problems inherent in Melville’s harsh treatment of missionaries and imperialism and the general disbelief of the veracity in the author’s tale aside, the works satiated a public thirst for exotic places. The fresh descriptions and intriguing narrative of an American sailor trapped among the Rousseauesque natives of the Marquesas Islands were hailed on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, and its sequel, Omoo, was received even more enthusiastically. Typee struck the American public like a ray of sunshine falling into a darkened room. It probably did not occur to Melville at the time, but he was introducing a new genre into American literature.

After the initial successes of Typee and Omoo, Melville never again achieved anything approaching popular success, but it was the acclaim over those two novels that assured Melville that he should attempt to make his way as a novelist. The first part of his career is characterized by the heady successes of Typee and Omoo, the second by the frustrating failure of, among others, Moby Dick, and the third by his increasing withdrawal from publication and the final discovery of and acclaim for Billy Budd, Foretopman, thirty-two years after Melville’s death. Herman Melville’s (Aug– September 28, 1891) career as a novelist breaks down, somewhat too neatly, into a three-part voyage of frustration and disappointment.

Billy Budd by Herman Melville