A deeply influential novel from one of America’s greatest authors, White-Jacket presents a view of life aboard a 19th-century navy ship that is equal parts humorous and sobering. Published a year before his masterpiece Moby-Dick, White-Jacket is based on Herman Melville’s own experiences aboard the USS United States from 1843 to 1844.
Full of memorable characters and dramatic episodes of navy life aboard a man-of-war, White-Jacket was actually far more influential than Moby-Dick during Melville’s lifetime–because of its graphic descriptions of flogging and the horrors caused by its arbitrary use, the novel was instrumental in the permanent abolition of flogging in the US Navy.
Today, White-Jacket remains an under-appreciated classic of American literature.
