Publisher's Synopsis
The Piazza Tales (1856) is the second collection of short stories by American writer Herman Melville. It was published with Dix & Edwards in the United States and a British edition followed shortly afterward. Except for the title story, "The Piazza," all of the stories had appeared in Putnam's Monthly, the first being Bartleby, the Scrivener in 1853. Melville had originally intended to entitle the volume Benito Cereno and Other Sketches, but it was The Encantadas, his sketches of the Galápagos Islands, that garnered the most attention from critics. Even though The Piazza Tales received largely favorable reviews, it did not sell well enough to get Melville out of his financial straits.
