Redburn: His First Voyage

Being the Sailor Boy Confessions and Reminiscences of the Son-of-a-Gentleman in the Merchant Service

Herman Melville

• Publisher: Aeneas Press
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9785501709065
• Subtopic: Classics
• Index: Literature

A gentleman's son with no money signs on as a boy before the mast for the Liverpool run, and finds that the sea is a trade like any other, staffed by men who despise him. Melville wrote it in ten weeks for money, called it beggarly work done to buy tobacco, and produced the truest account of a first voyage in American literature — the starving family in the Liverpool cellar is the passage no reader forgets.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Chapter I. How Wellingborough Redburn’s Taste for the Sea Was Born and Bred in Him
• Chapter II. Redburn’s Departure from Home
• Chapter III. He Arrives in Town
• Chapter IV. How He Disposed of His Fowling-Piece
• Chapter V. He Purchases His Sea-Wardrobe, and on a Dismal Rainy Day Picks Up His Board and Lodging Along the Wharves
• Chapter VI. He Is Initiated in the Business of Cleaning Out the Pig-Pen, and Slushing Down the Top-Mast
• Chapter VII. He Gets to Sea and Feels Very Bad
• Chapter VIII. He Is Put Into the Larboard Watch; Gets Sea-Sick; and Relates Some Other of His Experiences
• Chapter IX. The Sailors Becoming a Little Social, Redburn Converses with Them
• Chapter X. He Is Very Much Frightened; the Sailors Abuse Him; and He Becomes Miserable and Forlorn
• Chapter XI. He Helps Wash the Decks, and Then Goes to Breakfast
• Chapter XII. He Gives Some Account of One of His Shipmates Called Jackson
• Chapter XIII. He Has a Fine Day at Sea, Begins to Like It; but Changes His Mind
• Chapter XIV. He Contemplates Making a Social Call on the Captain in His Cabin
• Chapter XV. The Melancholy State of His Wardrobe
• Chapter XVI. At Dead of Night He Is Sent Up to Loose the Main-Skysail
• Chapter XVII. The Cook and Steward
• Chapter XVIII. He Endeavors to Improve His Mind; and Tells of One Blunt and His Dream Book
• Chapter XIX. A Narrow Escape
• Chapter XX. In a Fog He Is Set to Work as a Bell-Toller, and Beholds a Herd of Ocean-Elephants
• Chapter XXI. A Whaleman and a Man-Of-War’s-Man
• Chapter XXII. The Highlander Passes a Wreck
• Chapter XXIII. An Unaccountable Cabin-Passenger, and a Mysterious Young Lady
• Chapter XXIV. He Begins to Hop About in the Rigging Like a Saint Jago’s Monkey
• Chapter XXV. Quarter-Deck Furniture
• Chapter XXVI. A Sailor a Jack of All Trades
• Chapter XXVII. He Gets a Peep at Ireland, and at Last Arrives at Liverpool
• Chapter XXVIII. He Goes to Supper at the Sign of the Baltimore Clipper
• Chapter XXIX. Redburn Deferentially Discourses Concerning the Prospects of Sailors
• Chapter XXX. Redburn Grows Intolerably Flat and Stupid Over Some Outlandish Old Guide-Books
• Chapter XXXI. With His Prosy Old Guide-Book, He Takes a Prosy Stroll Through the Town
• Chapter XXXII. The Docks
• Chapter XXXIII. The Salt-Droghers, and German Emigrant Ships
• Chapter XXXIV. The Irrawaddy
• Chapter XXXV. Galliots, Coast-Of-Guinea-Man, and Floating Chapel
• Chapter XXXVI. The Old Church of St. Nicholas, and the Dead-House
• Chapter XXXVII. What Redburn Saw in Launcelott’s-Hey
• Chapter XXXVIII. The Dock-Wall Beggars
• Chapter XXXIX. The Booble-Alleys of the Town
• Chapter XL. Placards, Brass-Jewelers, Truck-Horses, and Steamers
• Chapter XLI. Redburn Roves About Hither and Thither
• Chapter XLII. His Adventure with the Cross Old Gentleman
• Chapter XLIII. He Takes a Delightful Ramble Into the Country; and Makes the Acquaintance of Three Adorable Charmers
• Chapter XLIV. Redburn Introduces Master Harry Bolton to the Favorable Consideration of the Reader
• Chapter XLV. Harry Bolton Kidnaps Redburn, and Carries Him Off to London
• Chapter XLVI. A Mysterious Night in London
• Chapter XLVII. Homeward Bound
• Chapter XLVIII. A Living Corpse
• Chapter XLIX. Carlo
• Chapter L. Harry Bolton at Sea
• Chapter LI. The Emigrants
• Chapter LII. The Emigrants’ Kitchen
• Chapter LIII. The Horatii and Curiatii
• Chapter LIV. Some Superior Old Nail-Rod and Pig-Tail
• Chapter LV. Drawing Nigh to the Last Scene in Jackson’s Career
• Chapter LVI. Under the Lee of the Long-Boat, Redburn and Harry Hold Confidential Communion
• Chapter LVII. Almost a Famine
• Chapter LVIII. Though the Highlander Puts Into No Harbor as Yet; She Here and There Leaves Many of Her Passengers Behind
• Chapter LIX. The Last End of Jackson
• Chapter LX. Home at Last
• Chapter LXI. Redburn and Harry, Arm in Arm, in Harbor
• Chapter LXII. The Last That Was Ever Heard of Harry Bolton
• About the Author