Melville biography: an inside narrative

Part I. Biographer and biography: Melville and the footsteps theory of biography

Textual editor as biographer in training : the Norton Moby-Dick and the Northwestern-Newberry writings of Herman Melville

Entangled by Pierre : doing biography away from the archives

Creating the new Melville log and writing the biography

Facts that do not speak for themselves

Desiderata and discoveries in traditional archives and databases

Part II. Critics vs. biographical scholarship: Agenda-driven reviewers : Melville in the insular New York newspapers and magazines vs. global loomings from "ragtag bloggers" and litblogs

Little Jack Horners and archivophobics

Biographical scholars and recidivist critics

Presentism in Melville biography

The late twentieth-century mini-Melville: New York intellectuals without information

The early twenty-first-century mini-Melville : New York intellectuals without information

Part III. The biographer in the workshop: demonstrations and challenges: Melville as the "modern Boccaccio" : the fascinations of Fayaway

Melville's courtship of Elizabeth Shaw

Melville's short run of good luck (1845-1849) : fool's paradise without international copyright

Melville without international copyright (1850-1854) : a Harper "sacrifice" for the "public good"

Melville and Hawthorne's dinner at the Hotel in Lenox

Why Melville took Hawthorne to the Holy Land : biography enhanced by databases and an amateur blogger

Melville as a Titan of literature among high-minded British admirers : the Kory-Kory and Queequeg component

Damned by dollars : Moby-Dick and the price of genius.