Redburn

by Herman Melville · 1849

A naive young gentleman's son signs on as a green hand aboard a merchant ship to Liverpool, enduring the brutal hazing of the forecastle and discovering the squalor of the docks his father once described in genteel guidebook terms.

Books mentioned in Redburn (2)

• A Thousand and One Nights: “just as you read the Arabian Nights, which no one ever believes”
• Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: “a foggy Saturday, when school-boys stay at home reading Robinson Crusoe.”