News to me...

Just catching up with Hershel Parker's blog—there were several items of note in his post of November 10:

• He just turned 80. (Congratulations!)
• He's "revising the 1967 Norton Critical Edition of Moby-Dick." (I assume/hope this will be a third edition from Norton. The first two editions are both essential.)
• He's about to give his personal "Melville Collection" to Lamar University, his undergrad alma mater.

Gift idea! (even if it's for yourself)

Released this year: Melville Biography,
An Inside Narrative

For the Melvillian on your list is this unclassifiable tome by Hershel Parker: Melville Biography, An Inside Narrative.

"Unclassifiable" because it is part autobiography, part rebuttal of his critics, part explication of his approach to biography, part continuation of his monumental Melville biography.

More than that I hesitate to say—because I've only just started reading it, and because my ignorance in these matters is vast. For a real review, see this one by Carl Rollyson, himself an accomplished biographer. (You may need a Wall St. Journal account to load the review. I was able to view it once; no longer. If you have access to back issues, it's in the 3/29/2013 WSJ.) A slightly condensed version of Rollyson's review is here, about halfway down the page.

I can tell you that it is interesting reading. (Be sure to read the Notes in the back, too.) 

Hershel remembers

À propos of nothing, a touching post by Hershel "dean of Melville studies" Parker.  To have been his student back in my university days...

He's working on another book, Melville Biography: An Inside Narrative. Something forward to which we can look!