the beggars, the depraved Harry Bolton Miguel Saveda Carlo The O'Briens and the O'Regans Goodwell Composition and publication history Melville alluded to Redburn for the first time in a letter to his English publisher in the late spring of 1849, in which he wrote that the novel would be practical rather than follow the "unwise" course of his previous novel, Mardi, which had been harshly criticized: Melville adopted this more commercial approach to writing as his family obligations increased and his working conditions became more difficult. Living with him in the small house in New York City were his wife, child, mother, sisters, and his brother Allen with his wife and child. Melville later portrayed himself at this time as being forced to write "with duns all around him, & looking over the back of his chair—& perching on his pen & diving in his inkstand—like the devils about St. Anthony." The book is a fictional narrative based loosely on Melville's own first voyage to Liverpool in 1839. The manuscript was completed in less than ten weeks and, without any attempt at polishing it, Melville submitted it to his American publisher Harper & Bros who published it in November 1849. Melville checked the proof sheets, which came out in August, and sent them along to Bentley for publication in England, where it appeared six weeks before the American version. In 1922 it was published as a volume of the Constable edition of Melville's complete works. Since then it has been continuously in print in inexpensive hard cover editions and since 1957 in paperback. Reception Melville referred to Redburn and his next book White-Jacket as "two jobs which I have done for money—being forced to it as other men are to sawing wood". It was reviewed favorably in all the influential publications, American and British, with many critics hailing it as Melville's return to his original style. The critics were divided along national lines when reviewing the scene in Launcelots Hey, the British dubbing it "improbable", the Americans "powerful". In 1884 William Clark Russell, the most popular writer of sea stories in his generation, praised the book's force and accuracy in print. He also sent Melville a personal letter where, among other items, he said "I have been reading your Redburn for the third or fourth time and have closed it more deeply impressed with the descriptive power that vitalises every