The private Melville /

It has long been known that Melville's cousin Priscilla is the basis for the character Isabel in Pierre; Isabel is the illegitimate half-sister of the book's hero, who pretends to marry her in a bizarre attempt to save her reputation. Young elucidates Melville's strangest novel through his discussion not only of Priscilla Melville's importance but also the devastating effect on Melville of the discovery that he himself had a secret half-sister named Ann Middleton Allen, his father's illegitimate daughter. Other chapters explicate some of Melville's most enigmatic writings, from a speech by Ahab in Moby-Dick to the story "Daniel Orme"; according to Young, each of these texts is based on Melville's hatred of his father. The Private Melville was unfinished at the time of Young's death; a good detective story, it is marred somewhat by a fragmented, gnomic style, which often rivals that of its subject, one of America's most cryptic, tormented, and brilliant writers. D. Kirby; Florida State University