Books: Lies-cu/n-Art

MELVILLE IN THE SOUTH SEAS—Charles Roberts Anderson—Columbia University Press ($4.50).

Since 1919—the Herman Melville centennial—the "Melville Revival" has provoked several biographies, some 500 essays, a flood of new Melville editions (54 U. S. and English editions of Moby Dick alone), and a consuming curiosity about Melville's scantily documented life. Biographers' main source material has been Melville's "autobiographical" novels. From these comes the portrait of the brooding, misanthropic philosopher and mystic, who went to sea in flight from suicide, won brief success with his South Seas romances (Typee, Omoo, et a/.) and Moby Dick, died a forgotten man after 20 bitter last years...