IN THE MAGAZINE

THE PEOPLE'S LISTS - PART 2

BIOGRAPHIES OF FOUR 19TH-CENTURY NOVELISTS

Excerpted from The People’s Almanac by David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace

HERMAN MELVILLE (1819–1891)

Melville’s life is a mystery. No one has satisfactorily explained, although many have tried, why the 32-year-old author of the monumental novel Moby-Dick would for the next 40 years write nothing of consequence. And no one can understand why a hardy seafarer like Melville, who had experienced the delights and hardships of the South Seas both aboard ship and on shore, should spend most of his last 19 years at the humdrum job of customs inspector.

Perhaps the answer lies in Melville’s early background. Descended from old American stock, Melville was born in New York, the son of a prosperous dry-goods importer whose business later failed. Melville’s father died when Herman was only 13, and he left his family in a dire financial state. Melville was forced to make his way in the world at an early age. He was mortified at his family’s loss of stature, and the remainder of his life seemed to involve a quest for security and inner peace.

After halfhearted attempts at being a bank clerk, a teacher, and a cabin boy, Melville finally shipped out to sea on a whaler bound for the South Seas. For the first time the world opened up to him. The beauty and the cruelty of the sea caught him forever in its spell. When his ship reached the Marquesas Islands (now part of French Polynesia), Melville and a companion jumped ship and lived among the pleasure-loving (and cannibalistic) natives. But despite his attachment to an island girl, Melville became homesick and signed on to a passing whaler. This voyage did not last long, for he joined a mutiny and landed in a Tahitian jail—from which he promptly escaped. Melville renewed his wanderings among the islanders and rapidly stored up the knowledge that was to serve him so well in his books. But he still yearned for home and therefore joined the crew of another whaler as a harpooner. He left this ship in Hawaii and shortly thereafter began the last leg of his journey home by joining the crew of a US naval frigate as an able-bodied seaman. When Melville arrived back in America he had everything he needed to inspire six years of magnificent creativity as a novelist.

In 1846 appeared Typee, the first of two novels based on Melville’s South Seas experiences. A mixture of fact and highly colored fiction, it was greeted with enthusiasm and outrage. Missionaries were particularly offended by the negative view it presented of their activities, and in later editions Melville was forced to make deletions to soothe their injured feelings. Omoo followed the next year and established the author’s literary reputation, which was further enhanced by the publication of White Jacket. This latter novel fully exposed the cruelty then extant in the US Navy and was the direct cause of the elimination of flogging as a punishment.

All this artistic effort culminated in the stunning Moby-Dick. Melville began this book as a mere retelling of old sailors’ yarns about a huge albino whale named Mocha Dick or Moby Dick, but in the process he transformed it into a novel so magnificent that it defies both description and critical analysis.

After Pierre appeared in 1852, Melville’s creative energy rapidly dried up. He was now either afraid of or tired of writing. Some poetry, a satire, and a handful of short stories were all that was left in him. His popularity dwindled until he had to publish his last works at his own expense. His brilliant short novel Billy Budd was not published until 33 years after his death. Financial problems pressed in upon him and domestic tragedy marred his life. One son killed himself either accidentally or deliberately, and another ran away from home. Melville repeatedly sought government employment and was greatly relieved when, in 1866, he was appointed a customs inspector in New York City, a job that he held for 19 years. When he died, only one newspaper bothered to publish an obituary. Many years passed before his true greatness was recognized.


LEO TOLTOJ (1828–1910)

Tolstoy had written in his diary, “My life is some stupid and spiteful joke that someone has played on me.” And now he was dying. His last words were, “This is the end… and it doesn’t really matter.” He died of pneumonia on November 20, 1910.

During his long life, Count Leo Tolstoy had been much more than the angry young man who turns novelist in order to change things or to better the condition of the oppressed. He was a tormented man, and his mind was plagued by the things he had done. “I put men to death,” he wrote in his voluminous diary. “I fought duels to slay others, I lost at cards, wasted my substance wrung from the sweat of peasants, punished the latter cruelly, and deceived men. Lying, robbery, drunkenness, violence, murder… all committed by me, not one crime omitted.” In other words, he had done all of the things that people expected young Russian noblemen to do, only he had a conscience and worried about it. These thoughts, combined with his overwhelming fear of dying, drove him to the verge of madness and suicide many times.

Tolstoy, the author of what critics have called two great complete pictures of society, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, was born at his mother’s ancestral home, Vasnaya Polyana. His parents had died by the time he was ten, and for much of the next 20 years he roamed the countryside gambling recklessly, drinking to excess, and, as he put it, “rioting with all sorts of loose women.” He contracted syphilis and gonorrhea, and although his many faults (sexual and otherwise) tore at his brain, he never failed to take advantage of an opportunity to carouse when it was offered.

Tolstoy’s earliest recollection was of pushing an older woman off the front porch of Vasnaya Polyana for unrequited love. He was five and the “older woman” was ten. This older woman grew up to be the mother of the hotheaded and quarrelsome girl named Sofia whom Tolstoy married on September 23, 1862.

Not wishing to hide anything from his new bride, Count Tolstoy promptly showed the new countess his diary, which was filled to the brim with shocking confessions and the sordid details of his wild younger days. He was 34 and she was only 18, but they were married anyway. Seventeen years and 13 children later, Tolstoy was so depressed that he was again seriously considering suicide, but something happened that changed his entire outlook on life.

He read the Sermon on the Mount and realized that the teachings of Christ were the key to happy living, and, for Tolstoy, to adopt an opinion was to act. He promptly tried to give his estate to the poor, throw his money to the peasants, and place his published works in the public domain for all the people of the world. His wife, who now had to support their 13 children in addition to hand-copying his manuscripts (War and Peace was copied seven times in its entirety), said no. But that didn’t stop Tolstoy from putting on peasants’ rags and working in the fields every day from sunup to sundown.

A conniving leech named Chertkov was drawn to the “new Master Tolstoy” and not only urged him to ignore his wife’s pleadings but suggested that he go even further in his quest for the perfect and happy life. The solution was to give up everything to a deserving peasant… namely Chertkov himself. The gullible Tolstoy drew up a new will leaving his estate to Chertkov. That was the last straw for the already enraged Countess Tolstoy. When Leo caught her foraging through his papers in search of the will, he decided to leave Russia and all of his worries behind him.

It was a cold night in October when Tolstoy boarded the overcrowded, poorly heated third-class train for the Russian border. He caught pneumonia and died in a blaze of publicity one month later.

When he was five years old, Tolstoy had told his brother that he knew of a secret that would destroy all the evil in men, and the secret was buried under a little green stick near Vasnaya Polyana. His brother buried him under the little green stick near their family home.


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