Discusses Herman Melville's book Billy Budd concerning its sources and how it unfolds in Melville's life and work. Signs of cultural deference in the biographical record; The publication history of Typee; The Treaty of Versailles certainly did not free this American Israel; Melville's astringency toward republican economic and political institutions in the work of the 1850s; Melville's use of literal and symbolic contrasts; More.
