Volume I: Eternal Ifs: Infant, Boy, and Man (1819-1840) Volume II: Melville at Sea (1840-1846).

Manhattan and Albany (1819-1832). Last leaves, new leaf -- Commerce and providence -- Home and street -- Awakenings -- The secret of our paternity -- Marriage of New England and New York -- Recuperations -- School boy and reader -- The birth of Ishmael -- Growing up Gansevoort (1832-1836). Patriarch and hero -- Gansevoort and the Indians -- Broken temple -- Jackson and the negro -- Albany and Africa -- Black Gansevoort -- Mourning and arousal -- Summer of plague -- Spoils and debt -- Working boy : steam & temptation -- Moving up -- Sibling coterie (1836). Brother Gansevoort -- Happiness and power -- Sister Helen -- Emancipated school girl -- Sister Augusta -- Dark-eyed darling -- Composing yourself -- Inland identities : farmer, teacher, debater, lover, writer (1836-1839). "Deep inland there I" -- Uncle Thomas -- Schoolmaster -- Debater and cosmopolite -- Lansingburgh : river banks & bankruptcy -- The intimacy of reading -- Occasional writting & reading -- Love is then our duty -- Published writer -- The imperative of travel (1839). On the go off -- Circumambulating Manhattan -- Heading out to sea -- Brotherhood of outcasts -- Secret sympathy -- First voyage (1839). Along the Marge -- His first crew -- Learning the ropes -- No school like a ship for studying human nature -- Irish Sea and Liverpool -- Liverpool and Back (1839-1840). The Liverpool of his father -- Roscoe and the picture of Liverpool -- What Melville saw in Liverpool -- The mment of Liverpool -- Home again : teacher again -- Rent -- Maria's boys -- Out West (1840). On the road -- On the canal -- Up in Michigan -- Chicago and Galena -- Versions of prairie -- The falls of St. Anthony -- Lonely watcher -- Rivers and scars -- The Atlantic (1841). Four weeks' residence in Manhattan -- Mean streets -- New Bedford -- Ready for sea -- Ship and space -- First lowering -- Unimaginable accidents -- Tornadoed Atlantic of my being -- The Pacific (1841-1842). My dear Pacific -- Work and love -- This thing of the Essex -- Forecastle conversation -- Lover of the picturesque -- Versions of picturesque -- The Marquesas (1842). Nuku Hiva -- Jumping ship -- Island masculinities -- Taipi and Typee -- Escaping paradise -- Tahiti, Eimeo, Hawai'i (1842-1843). Good and faithful seaman -- Reluctant mutineer -- Resistance and vulnerability -- Comic consciousness -- Tahiti as is -- Cosmopolitan Polynesia -- Not until Honolulu was I aware -- Colonial consciousness -- In the Navy (1843-1844). Herman Melville O. S. -- Ordinary seamen -- Miracle of art -- Tearless in Lima -- Humiliation and riot -- Theater of war -- Sailor come home (1844-1845). Beloved brother -- Tableaux vivants -- First unfoldings -- Writing Typee (1845-1846). Tinker, alter, erupt -- The language of my companion -- Translating Taipi -- Melville in eruption -- Smuggling verbalist -- Practiced writer (1846). Brothers together -- Broken sword.