Wright American Fiction

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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by HERMAN MELVILLE, In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New York.

TO Greylock's Most Excellent Majesty.

IN old times authors were proud of the privilege of dedicating their works to Majesty. A right noble custom, which we of Berkshire must revive. For whether we will or no, Majesty is all around us here in Berkshire, sitting as in a grand Congress of Vienna of majestical hill-tops, and eternally challenging our homage.

But since the majestic mountain, Greylock—my own more immediate sovereign lord and king—hath now, for innumerable ages, been the one grand dedicatee of the earliest rays of all the Berkshire mornings, I know not how his Imperial Purple Majesty (royal-born: Porphyrogenitus) will receive the dedication of my own poor solitary ray.

Nevertheless, forasmuch as I, dwelling with my loyal neighbors, the Maples and the Beeches, in the amphitheater over which his central majesty presides, have received his most bounteous and unstinted fertilizations, it is but meet, that I here devoutly kneel, and render up my gratitude, whether, thereto, The Most Excellent Purple Majesty of Greylock benignantly incline his hoary crown or no.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS.

• BOOK I. PIERRE JUST EMERGING FROM HIS TEENS. 1
• BOOK II. LOVE, DELIGHT, AND ALARM. 26
• BOOK III. THE PRESENTIMENT AND THE VERIFICATION. 56
• BOOK IV. RETROSPECTIVE. 89
• BOOK V. MISGIVINGS AND PREPARATIVES. 116
• BOOK VI. ISABEL, AND THE FIRST PART OF THE STORY OF ISABEL. 147
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• BOOK VII. INTERMEDIATE BETWEEN PIERRE'S TWO INTERVIEWS WITH ISABEL AT THE FARM-HOUSE. 173
• BOOK VIII. THE SECOND INTERVIEW, AND THE SECOND PART OF THE STORY OF ISABEL. THEIR IMMEDIATE IMPULSIVE EFFECT UPON PIERRE. 194
• BOOK IX. MORE LIGHT, AND THE GLOOM OF THAT LIGHT. MORE GLOOM, AND THE LIGHT OF THAT GLOOM. 224
• BOOK X. THE UNPRECEDENTED FINAL RESOLUTION OF PIERRE. 233
• BOOK XI. HE CROSSES THE RUBICON. 247
• BOOK XII. ISABEL, MRS. GLENDINNING, THE PORTRAIT, AND LUCY. 256
• BOOK XIII. THEY DEPART THE MEADOWS. 273
• BOOK XIV. THE JOURNEY AND THE PAMPHLET. 277
• BOOK XV. THE COUSINS. 294
• BOOK XVI. FIRST NIGHT OF THEIR ARRIVAL IN THE CITY. 312
• BOOK XVII. YOUNG AMERICA IN LITERATURE. 333
• BOOK XVIII. PIERRE, AS A JUVENILE AUTHOR, RECONSIDERED. 350
• BOOK XIX. THE CHURCH OF THE APOSTLES. 360
• BOOK XX. CHARLIE MILLTHORPE. 374
• BOOK XXI. PIERRE IMMATURELY ATTEMPTS A MATURE BOOK. TIDINGS FROM THE MEADOWS. PLINLIMMON. 384
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• BOOK XXII. THE FLOWER-CURTAIN LIFTED FROM BEFORE A TROPICAL AUTHOR; WITH SOME REMARKS ON THE TRANSCENDENTAL FLESH-BRUSH PHILOSOPHY. 402
• BOOK XXIII. A LETTER FOR PIERRE. ISABEL. ARRIVAL OF LUCY'S EASEL AND TRUNKS AT THE APOSTLES'. 418
• BOOK XXIV. LUCY AT THE APOSTLES'. 439
• BOOK XXV. LUCY, ISABEL, AND PIERRE. PIERRE AT HIS BOOK. ENCELADUS. 450
• BOOK XXVI. A WALK; A FOREIGN PORTRAIT; A SAIL. AND THE END. 475