Herman Melville

Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War Herman Melville

The book is Melville's return to poetry after a hiatus which began in 1860 when Harper & Brothers turned down a book of his poems, which is now lost. After moving his family from Massachusetts to New York in 1863, Melville contemplated writing a book of poems on the war, but evidently did not begin to do so until 1864. The book was not published until 1866, a year after the end of the war. The title refers to the familiar paintings by Dutch and British artists who depicted scenes of battle at sea and musical settings of these battles.