Title
Tolerable Entertainment: Herman Melville and Professionalism in Antebellum New York,Used
Sold by Ergodebooks, an authorized reseller.
Returns accepted within 30 days | support@ergodebooks.com
Shipping Information
- Free Standard Shipping — United States only
- Processing Time: 1–3 business days
- Estimated Delivery: 3–5 business days after dispatch
- Double-boxed, fully insured & discreetly packaged
- Tracking number sent via email once dispatched
- Orders over $250 require signature upon delivery. Taxes calculated at checkout.
Returns & Refund
Returns accepted within 30 days of delivery.
Damaged or Defective Item
Free return shipping + replacement or full refund
Wrong Item Received
Free return shipping + replacement or full refund
Change of Mind
Return shipping at customer's expense · 25% restocking fee applies
Payment Option
In Tolerable Entertainment, Herman Melville's life and literary work serve as windows on the tumultuous world of antebellum New York City. Charting Melville's writings from Typee (1846) to Pierre (1852) as responses to his experience of living in the city, this book reveals the dramatic shifts in American life occurring at the time.Perhaps more than any other nineteenthcentury writer, Melville has been read and understood in the context of his career, embodied in a narrative of the trajectory from immature emergence, through brilliant ascendance, to collapse into neglect. Moving beyond these stereotypes, John Evelev uses Melville's writings to place the concept of 'career' within a historical framework, as part of the ideological project of a new middleclass professionalism. He describes a meritocratic ethos of competitive specialization and expertise that distanced itself from both the deskilling of industrialized labor and the older professional arrangement of elite patronage. By exploring the intersections of class and culture in antebellum America, Evelev offers a new perspective on Melville's literary career.Tolerable Entertainment reads Melville's life and work in relation to such cultural developments as the famous 'high/low' theater riots at Astor Place and the rise of the lyceum circuit, a forum for celebrity lecturers to reach the new urban 'middlebrow' audience. The book also considers such transformations in antebellum social attitudes as urban workers' protests against industrialization and the growth of the 'selfculture' of the new urban middle class, with the emergence of vocational associations and professional specialization.Evelev's readings run against the grain of modern Melville scholarship by emphasizing not the values of individualism and democracy that have led critics to construe Melville's writings as central to the American canon, but rather the ambivalent cultural and vocational distinctions of the developing middle class to which Melville belonged.
⚠️ WARNING (California Proposition 65):
This product may contain chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm.
For more information, please visit www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.