John
Bryant

JOHN BRYANT, an internationally renowned Melville scholar and Professor Emeritus of English at Hofstra University, has published numerous books and essays on Melville and other 19^th-century writers, biography, scholarly editing, and digital scholarship. Founder of the award-winning Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies and director of the Melville Electronic Library, he received the Distinguished Editor Award from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals in 2015. The first two volumes of his projected 3-volume biography— Herman Melville: A Half Known Life—appeared in 2021, and his ground-breaking theory of textual editing, The Fluid Text, appeared in 2002.

PRAISE FOR A HALF KNOWN LIFE

"More than any biography of Melville I have read, Bryant’s creates a vibrantly populated and richly acculturated world, down (say) to the cholera epidemic in Albany in 1832 and the particulars of the local fur industry. Others have written about such things; Bryant takes us there...a remarkable achievement, and one that potentially appeals to a wide audience from Melville specialists...to intelligent general readers looking for a lively, provocative 'read.'"

Robert Milder, Melville scholar, Washington University

"A Half Known Life brings life to Melville’s works as no previous study has done."

Lance Schachterle, Cooper Journal

"The brilliantly chosen subtitle reflects Bryant’s plangent recognition that a part of the Melville mystery can never be fully plumbed."

Carl Rollyson, Author and Biographer, The Life of William Faulkner, The Last Days of Sylvia Plath