- description
- # Introductory Note
## Overview
This is a "frontmatter" section labeled "Introductory Note," extracted from the text file [billy_budd.txt](arke:01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR). It is part of the novel [Billy Budd and Other Prose Pieces](arke:01KG6GJKJ0PQQH41HGQ3BBMH23) and provides context for the included works. The text was extracted on January 30, 2026.
## Context
The "Introductory Note" is part of the larger [Test Collection](arke:01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H). It follows the [Title Page and Publication Information](arke:01KG6GK6D7XX3953MAHNBR7N9D) and precedes the "CONTENTS" section. The note discusses the novel "Billy Budd," which was finished shortly before Herman Melville's death in 1891, and other prose pieces included in the volume.
## Contents
The "Introductory Note" introduces "Billy Budd" and other works, including "Daniel Orme" and "The Two Temples." It mentions that "The Two Temples" was rejected by *Putnam’s Monthly Magazine* in 1854. The note also states that the volume includes sketches written after Melville's retirement in 1886. It indicates that the text of the unpublished material is printed as closely as possible to Melville's manuscript, with minor adjustments for grammar and style. The note acknowledges the Princeton University Press for allowing the reprinting of essays from *The Apple-Tree Table and Other Sketches*.
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- Introductory Note
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- INTRODUCTORY NOTE
‘Billy Budd,’ the title-piece of this volume, is a novel finished by
Melville five months before his death in 1891, and never before
published. ‘Daniel Orme’ is a sketch ‘omitted from _Billy Budd_.’ The
fourth piece--‘The Two Temples’--was on May 12, 1854, refused by
_Putnam’s Monthly Magazine_ out of a fear of offending the religious
sensibilities of the congregation of Grace Church, New York. This volume
concludes with eight sketches surviving in manuscript, written, in all
probability, after Melville’s retirement in 1886, at the age of
sixty-seven, from his post as Inspector of Customs in New York City.
Except for his letters, journals, and the juvenile ‘Fragments from a
Writing Desk,’ this closes the count of Melville as a writer of prose.
The rest of the volume comprises all Melville’s contributions to
magazines that he acknowledged but never reprinted.
The text of matter hitherto unpublished has, so far as possible, been
printed verbatim from Melville’s manuscript. Here and there, however,
owing to the heavily corrected condition of many of the papers, slight
adjustments in the interests of grammar or of style have been made in
Melville’s wording.
The editor and publishers are indebted to the Princeton University Press
for their courtesy in allowing two of the essays included in this volume
to be reprinted from _The Apple-Tree Table and Other Sketches_, a volume
of Melville’s prose miscellanea recently issued from Princeton.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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- Introductory Note