THE APPLE-TREE TABLE
AND OTHER SKETCHES
THE
APPLE-TREE TABLE
AND OTHER SKETCHES
BY
HERMAN MELVILLE
_With an Introductory Note by_
HENRY CHAPIN
[Illustration]
PRINCETON
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
MCMXXII
_Copyrighted and Published 1922 by Princeton University Press_
_Printed by the Princeton University Press, Princeton, U. S. A._
Introductory Note
_The various prose sketches here reprinted were first published by
Melville, some in Harper's and some in Putnam's magazines, during the
years from 1850 to 1856. "Hawthorne and His Mosses," the only piece of
criticism in this collection, is particularly interesting viewed in the
light of Melville's friendship with Hawthorne while they were neighbors
at Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The other sketches cover a variety of
homely subjects treated by Melville with a fresh humor, richly phrased
and curiously personal. Longer and in some ways more ambitious prose
pieces written about this same time have been collected under the
title of "Piazza Tales," but none of the sketches which follow have
heretofore been gathered into a book. This has now been done not only
to answer a growing demand for accessible reprints of Melville's work
but also in response to the literary appeal of the sketches themselves.
The author's phraseology and punctuation have, of course, been,
followed exactly._