Comparing Herman Melville's Life And Work

Herman Melville was born on August 1, 1819 in New York City. He lived a lavish lifestyle with several servants attending the house at one time, switching households every four years to a larger and better one. This was mostly due to Allan Melville’s, his father, work. He imported French dry goods, such as; clothing, thread, and other hardware in order to sell them for a percentage of the sales price. Due to this, Melville didn’t get to see his father often because he spent his time travelling to Europe for more goods. But spending more than what you earn is always a problem, Melville's father borrowed from his father and his wife’s mother because he was trying to live a life he couldn’t afford, so much so that he at one point had twenty thousand dollars of debt to his name. Eventually, his father moved on to the fur business but ended up dying of a cold he got from a journey on January 28, 1832.

He was a slow learner because in 1826 he contracted the scarlet fever, but this did not last long as he later became an outstanding speaker. In 1829 he was transferred to the Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School where he was able to have a high standing without much studying, suggested in a letter from his father to Major Melville, his father’s father, in 1830. When Melville’s father changed to the fur business, he transferred to the Albany Academy where he was taught “reading and spelling; penmanship; arithmetic; English grammar; geography; natural history; universal, Greek, Roman and English history; classical biography; and Jewish antiquities”(“Herman Melville”, Wikipedia). He ended up leaving because the tuition expense seemed to be too