Herman Melville

White-Jacket Herman Melville

White Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War, usually referred to as White-Jacket, is an 1850 novel by Herman Melville. Based on Melville's experiences as a common seaman aboard the frigate USS United States from 1843 to 1844 and stories that other sailors told him, the novel is severely critical of virtually every aspect of American naval life and thus qualifies as Melville's most politically strident work.