WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
Pierre; or The Ambiguities cover

Pierre; or The Ambiguities

Chapter 1: PIERRE: OR, THE AMBIGUITIES.
By Herman Melville
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

American LiteratureNovels

About This Book

A young scion of a prosperous household experiences an intense sentimental attachment that triggers the uneasing disclosure of a family secret and sets off a crisis of identity and conscience. The narrative traces his shifting affections, filial relations, and social ambitions while interweaving episodes of urban life, literary ambition, and philosophical digression. Encounters with a mysterious woman and with intimate acquaintances force him to confront competing loyalties, moral ambiguity, and the costs of self-fashioning, and the story moves between pastoral scenes, psychological introspection, public controversy, and a culminating, irrevocable resolution.

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Pierre; or The Ambiguities

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Pierre; or The Ambiguities

Author: Herman Melville

Release date: January 15, 2011 [eBook #34970]
Most recently updated: May 28, 2022

Language: English

Credits: Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PIERRE; OR THE AMBIGUITIES ***

PIERRE:

OR,

THE AMBIGUITIES.


BY
HERMAN MELVILLE.


NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS
329 & 331 PEARL STREET,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1852.


/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
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.

Pittsfield, Mass.