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A critical gem characteristic of Sten's lucidity, the beauty and craft of his prose style, and clarity of his argument. Novice and seasoned readers alike will find many surprises in these imaginative and agile readings. With its focus on rhetorics and narratives of pain, on the body pushed to and beyond its limits, the book speaks to urgent concerns in a post-pandemic world. It resonates deeply with a number of immediate crises, while connecting gracefully with deep critical traditions. It will be read as illuminating much more than Melville's short stories. --Wyn Kelley, MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, author of An Introduction to Herman Melville Christopher Sten's excellent book contributes significantly to our understanding of the career, literary techniques, and entwined aesthetic and political concerns of this major American author. --Samuel Otter, University of California, Berkeley, author of Melville's Anatomies Ingenious and persuasive. A truly original study on a topic of considerable importance to the field of nineteenth-century American literature. --Brian Yothers, University of Texas, El Paso, author of Melville's Mirrors: Literary Criticism and America's Most Elusive Author

The book's short chapters, lucid and energetic prose, and relative lack of complex theoretical terminology make it an ideal choice for the classroom. This is not a back-handed compliment: it is good for the field when undergraduates are able to pick up a work of scholarship about The Piazza Tales and understand it. And it is good for undergraduates to see models of genuinely masterful close reading, the sort of close reading that makes one reconsider their own interpretations, no matter how entrenched. i hope this book is the first of many book-length treatments of The Piazza Tales: the seeds it sows for future research on Melville's depictions of pain, exhaustion, boredom, and monstrosity will no doubt bear much fruit.-- ""Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies"" A critical gem characteristic of Sten's lucidity, the beauty and craft of his prose style, and clarity of his argument. Novice and seasoned readers alike will find many surprises in these imaginative and agile readings. With its focus on rhetorics and narratives of pain, on the body pushed to and beyond its limits, the book speaks to urgent concerns in a post-pandemic world. It resonates deeply with a number of immediate crises, while connecting gracefully with deep critical traditions. It will be read as illuminating much more than Melville's short stories. --Wyn Kelley, MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, author of An Introduction to Herman Melville Christopher Sten's excellent book contributes significantly to our understanding of the career, literary techniques, and entwined aesthetic and political concerns of this major American author. --Samuel Otter, University of California, Berkeley, author of Melville's Anatomies Ingenious and persuasive. A truly original study on a topic of considerable importance to the field of nineteenth-century American literature. --Brian Yothers, University of Texas, El Paso, author of Melville's Mirrors: Literary Criticism and America's Most Elusive Author

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Christopher Sten is Professor Emeritus of English and American Literature at George Washington University and coeditor of ""This Mighty Convulsion"": Whitman and Melville Write the Civil War.

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