You don't hear much about this book these days because it is overshadowed by Melville's masterpieces, Moby Dick. But one of my favorite books by him is an earlier one, Typee.
The story concerns a seaman who jumped ship in the Marquesas around 1850. It is based on Melville's actual experiences. He and his friend Toby climbed one of the incredibly steep ridges that surround most of the harbor at NukuHiva to get away from their ship. This was at a time when the Marquesans were headhunters and cannibals. Their greatest worry was that they would end up being discovered and eaten by the tribe named Typee.
It doesn't give away much to tell you that they were captured by the Typee. The experiences of Melville while among them for a few months, and his ultimate escape, are what makes this book fascinating and forever enduring.
Why is this one of my favorites ? Partly I love it because it describes how a totally non-Western people lived at that time. Melville was a careful and astute observer, and he shares what he saw and leasrned in an account much more interesting than it would have been as a formal ethnography.
But partly I love it for two other reasons. First, I have been to the Marquesas several times, so Melville's account has a ring of familiarity about it. And second -- and most important -- much of what happened to Melville among the Typee greatly resembles the life I led when I lived in a Samoan village for a year, and when I returned to Samoa many, many times.
I am working on a new edition of Typee. I don'tr see anything done by other editors who have any knowledge of Polynesia, which I have studied and written about elsewhere, so I think I can present the text and an introduction that will add to anyone's enjoyment of this book.
