Born to a once-prominent New York family, Herman Melville grew up in an atmosphere of financial instability. He tried several jobs to help the family including work as a bank clerk, a teacher, and in the merchant marine. The latter became the background for many of his greater works including Redburn and Moby-Dick. Melville, who had only been sporadically educated, improved his repertoire as an author throughout his career, increasing use of symbolic levels of meaning in his novels, short stories, and poems. This program explores his life and major works.