Melville's power in describing and investing with romance scenes
and incidents witnessed and participated in by himself, and his
frequent failure of success as an inventor of characters and
situations, were early pointed out by his critics. More recently
Mr. Henry S. Salt has drawn the same distinction very carefully
in an excellent article contributed to the Scottish Art Review.
In a prefatory note to 'Mardi' (1849), Melville declares that, as
his former books have been received as romance instead of
reality, he will now try his hand at pure fiction. 'Mardi' may
be called a splendid failure. It must have been soon after the
completion of 'Omoo' that Melville began to study the writings of
Sir Thomas Browne. Heretofore our author's style was rough in
places, but marvellously simple and direct. 'Mardi' is burdened
with an over-rich diction, which Melville never entirely outgrew.
The scene of this romance, which opens well, is laid in the South
Seas, but everything soon becomes overdrawn and fantastical, and
the thread of the story loses itself in a mystical allegory.

'Redburn,' already mentioned, succeeded 'Mardi' in the same year,
and was a partial return to the author's earlier style. In
'White-Jacket; or, the World in a Man-of-War' (1850), Melville
almost regained it. This book has no equal as a picture of life
aboard a sailing man-of-war, the lights and shadows of naval
existence being well contrasted.

With 'Moby Dick; or, the Whale' (1851), Melville reached the
topmost notch of his fame. The book represents, to a certain
extent, the conflict between the author's earlier and later
methods of composition, but the gigantic conception of the 'White
Whale,' as Hawthorne expressed it, permeates the whole work, and