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Herman Melvillewas born on August 1, 1819, in New York City, the son of a merchant. Only twelve when his father died bankrupt, young Herman tried work as a bank clerk, as a cabin boy on a trip to Liverpool, and as an elementary schoolteacher, before shipping in January 1841 on the whalerAcushnet, bound for the Pacific. Deserting ship the following year in the Marquesas, he made his way to Tahiti and Honolulu, returning as an ordinary seaman on the frigateUnited Statesto Boston, where he was discharged in October 1844. Books based on these adventures won him immediate success. By 1850 he was married, had acquired a farm near Pittsfield, Massachussetts (where he was the impetuous friend and neighbor of Nathaniel Hawthorne), and was hard at work on his masterpieceMoby-Dick.Literary success soon faded; his complexity increasingly alienated readers. After a visit to the Holy Land in January 1857, he turned from writing prose fiction to poetry. In 1863, during the Civil War, he moved back to New York City, where from 1866 to1885 he was a deputy inspector in the Custom House, and where, on September 28, 1891, he died. A draft of a final prose work,Billy Budd, Sailor, was left unfinished and uncollated; packedtidily away by his widow, it was not rediscovered and published until 1924. Andrew Delbancowas born in 1952. Educated at Harvard, he has lectured extensively throughout the United States and abroad. In 2001, Time named him""America's Best Social Critic""and in 2011 he was awarded a National Humanities Medal. Two of his previous works,The Puritan OrdealandMelville- His World and Work received the LionelTrilling Book Award at Columbia University, where he is Director of American Studies and Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Humanities. He lives in New York City with his wife and two children. Tom Quirkis Catherine Paine Middlebush Professor of English at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is the editor of the Penguin Classics editions of Mark Twain'sTales,Speeches, Essays, and Sketches(1994) and Ambrose Bierce'sTales of Soldiers and Civilians and Other Stories(2000) and co-editor ofThe Portable American Realism Reader(1997). His recent books includeNothing Abstract- Investigations in the American Literary Imagination(2001) andMark Twain and Human Nature (2007). Coralie Bickford-Smithis an award-winning designer at Penguin Books (U.K.), where she has created several highly acclaimed series designs. She studied typography at Reading University and lives in London.
Winner of the 2012 Fifty Books/Fifty Covers show, organized by Design Observer in association with AIGA and Designers & Books Winner of the 2014 Type Directors Club Communication Design Award Praise for Penguin Drop Caps: [Penguin Drop Caps] convey a sense of nostalgia for the tactility and aesthetic power of a physical book and for a centuries-old tradition of beautiful lettering. -- Fast Company Vibrant, minimalist new typographic covers.... Bonus points for the heartening gender balance of the initial selections. --Maria Popova, Brain Pickings The Penguin Drop Caps series is a great example of the power of design. Why buy these particular classics when there are less expensive, even free editions of Great Expectations ? Because they're beautiful objects. Paul Buckley and Jessica Hische's fresh approach to the literary classics reduces the design down to typography and color. Each cover is foil-stamped with a cleverly illustrated letterform that reveals an element of the story. Jane Austen's A ( Pride and Prejudice ) is formed by opulent peacock feathers and Charlotte Bronte's B ( Jane Eyre ) is surrounded by flames. The complete set forms a rainbow spectrum prettier than anything else on your bookshelf. --Rex Bonomelli, The New York Times Drool-inducing. -- Flavorwire Classic reads in stunning covers--your book club will be dying. -- Redbook
