Books: A Library in the Hands

Four new-old volumes begin an American homecoming

Any good books lately? Well, there is a hardback collection of Typee, Omoo and Mardi, all by a young novelist named Herman Melville (1819-91). Nearly 33,000 copies have been printed, shipped and readied for sale. And that is not all. Three look-alike companions are also hot off the presses and speeding toward dealers: the complete poetry and prose of Walt Whitman (1819-92), the tales and sketches of Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-64) and three novels by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-96). They will soon be available in U.S. bookstores, at...

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