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Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile
Contributor(s): Melville, Herman (Author), Levine, Robert S. (Introduction by), Levine, Robert S. (Notes by)
ISBN: 014310523X     ISBN-13: 9780143105237
Publisher: Penguin Group
OUR PRICE:   $20.90  
Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats
Published: March 2008
Qty:
Annotation: Herman Melville's "Israel Potter" is the novelized tale of a man who really did fight in the American Revolution -- a man who lived a life of very real adventure. After fighting in the revolution, he went on to be a part of the newly-established United States Navy, ended up serving as a secret courier for Benjamin Franklin! Bits of this are fiction, and may be even more spectacular. . . .
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Fiction | Action & Adventure
- Fiction | Classics
- Fiction | Literary
Dewey: FIC
Lexile Measure: 1300
Series: Penguin Classics
Physical Information: 0.52" H x 5.1" W x 7.72" (0.44 lbs) 288 pages
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
The authoritative edition of Melville's only historical novel

Based on the life of an actual soldier who claimed to have fought at Bunker Hill, Israel Potter is unique among Herman Melville's books: a novel in the guise of a biography. In telling the story of Israel Potter's fall from Revolutionary War hero to peddler on the streets of London, where he obtained a livelihood by crying Old Chairs to Mend, Melville alternated between invented scenes and historical episodes, granting cameos to such famous men of the era as Benjamin Franklin (Potter may have been his secret courier) and John Paul Jones, and providing a portrait of the American Revolution as the rollicking adventure and violent series of events that it really was.

This edition of Israel Potter, which reproduces the definitive text, includes selections from Potter's autobiography, Life and Remarkable Adventures of Israel R. Potter, the basis for Melville's novel.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.