Synopses & Reviews
Enriched Classics offer readers accessible editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and commentary. Each book includes educational tools alongside the text, enabling students and readers alike to gain a deeper and more developed understanding of the writer and their work.
Billy Budd, Sailor has been called the best short novel ever written. In his brilliantly condensed prose, Herman Melville fashions a legal parable in which reason and intellect prove incapable of preserving innocence in the face of evil. For all those who feel themselves threatened by a hostile and inflexible environment, there is special significance in this haunting story of a handsome sailor who becomes a victim of man’s intransigence.
Enriched Classics enhance your engagement by introducing and explaining the historical and cultural significance of the work, the author’s personal history, and what impact this book had on subsequent scholarship. Each book includes discussion questions that help clarify and reinforce major themes and reading recommendations for further research.
Read with confidence.
Synopsis
A handsome young sailor is unjustly accused of plotting mutiny in this timeless tale of the sea.
This Enriched Classic Edition includes:
A concise introduction that gives readers important background information
A chronology of the author's life and work
A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context
An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations
Detailed explanatory notes
Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work
Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction
A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience
Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world's finest books to their full potential.
Synopsis
Hayford and Sealts's text was the first accurate version of Melville's final novel. Based on a close analysis of the manuscript, thoroughly annotated, and packaged with a history of the text and perspectives for its criticism, this edition will remain the definitive version of a profoundly suggestive story.
"The texts are impeccably accurate. . . . The collection is accompanied by an unobtrusive but expert annotation. . . . Probably Melville's finest short work, the incomplete 'Billy Budd, ' [is] a striking reworking of the crucifixion set in the English maritime service of the Revolutionary period."--John Sutherland, "The Los Angeles Times