Herman Melville

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…the average reader, and its originality and symbolic meaning escaped most of the critics. Moby Dick, his masterpiece, received little attention and most of that unfavorable. He kept on writing until his death in 1891 but was virtually ignored. Only in the 1920s did the critics rediscover him and give him his merited place in the history of American literature. His 'Billy Budd, Foretopman,' now considered one of his best stories, was not published until 1924.