The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
Copyrighted and Published 1922 by Princeton University Press
Printed by the Princeton University Press, Princeton, U. S. A.
Introductory Note
The various prose sketches here reprintedwere first published by Melville, some inHarper’s and some in Putnam’s magazines,during the years from 1850 to 1856. “Hawthorneand His Mosses,” the only piece ofcriticism in this collection, is particularlyinteresting viewed in the light of Melville’sfriendship with Hawthorne while they wereneighbors at Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Theother sketches cover a variety of homely subjectstreated by Melville with a fresh humor,richly phrased and curiously personal. Longerand in some ways more ambitious prose pieceswritten about this same time have been collectedunder the title of “Piazza Tales,” butnone of the sketches which follow have heretoforebeen gathered into a book. This has nowbeen done not only to answer a growing demandfor accessible reprints of Melville’s workbut also in response to the literary appeal ofthe sketches themselves. The author’s phraseologyand punctuation have, of course, been,followed exactly.
H. C.