Draft of an opening paragraph for the "Historical Note" to “Billy Budd, Sailor” and Other Uncompleted Writings

Published Poems, volume 11 in the Northwestern-Newberry Edition of The Writings of Herman Melville, includes three of the four books of poetry which Melville published, Battle-Pieces (1866), John Marr (1888) and Timoleon (1891). Melville’s epic-length Clarel is published separately as NN Volume 12. The present volume, 13 in the NN Edition, “Billy Budd, Sailor” and Other Uncompleted Writings, contains the manuscript on Billy Budd which Melville left unfinished at his death, along with other writings, mainly poetical, which he left unpublished, although he thought of some of individual pieces as finished and ready for publication. This volume also includes Melville’s memoir of his uncle Thomas Melvill written a few years before it was published in an editorially altered form in 1876. Our intention is to be comprehensive, but Melville may have written and published poems that have not been discovered. (A June 17, 1877, letter from his sister Frances refers to a paper, yet unlocated, containing “lines by Herman.”) The works in this volume have frequently been mischaracterized, Billy Budd as a work Melville completed and the poems as examples of “Melville’s late poetry.” In fact, much the poetry in this volume was first written earlier in his career, not drafted late in Melville’s life, after his retirement as a customs inspector. The title of this volume is “Billy Budd, Sailor” and Other Uncompleted Writings--not “Billy Budd, Sailor” and Melville’s Late Poetry.