“We Americans are the peculiar chosen people – the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the world.”
American novelist Herman Melville who was born on August 1, 1819 in New York City.
Melville’s dramatic quote reflects the complex relationship he held with the shifting identity of a young, industrializing America. While he is celebrated today as a literary giant, Melville died in near-total obscurity and financial ruin, completely abandoned by the reading public. His masterpiece, Moby-Dick, was a commercial failure during his lifetime, largely because its dense philosophical musings and dark, psychological themes alienated readers who expected a simple, high-seas adventure tale. Overwhelmed by debt and family tragedy, Melville spent his final decades working a grueling, unglamorous day job as a customs inspector on the docks of New York City, leaving his brilliant literary genius to be rediscovered long after his death during the “Melville Revival” of the 1920s.
