The Divine Magnet
Herman Melville's Letters to Nathaniel Hawthorne
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The Divine Magnet
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Narrated by:
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Jim Meskimen
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By:
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Herman Melville
About this listen
If you don't know Melville's letters to Hawthorne, you don't know Melville. These letters are full of passion, humor, doubt, and spiritual yearning, and offer an intimate view of Melville's personality. Lyrical and effusive, they are literary works in themselves. This correspondence has been out of print for decades, and even when it was in print it appeared in scholarly volumes of Melville's complete correspondence, aimed at the academy. The Divine Magnet will provide the general literary public as well as the college classroom with a reliable and beautifully produced volume of Melville's letters to Hawthorne, along with supplemental material, highlighting the relationship between these luminaries of American letters.
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- Narrated by: Walter Covell
- Length: 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 73
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 64
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Story4 out of 5 stars 64
Hawthorne approached the Romantic notion of the ability of science to destroy art (or beauty) in the form of fictive "horror stories" of biological research out of control. This story is the best of that group. A devoted scientist marries a beautiful woman with a single physical flaw: a birthmark on her face. Aylmer becomes obsessed with the imperfection and his attempts to remove it via his scientific skills, thus rendering his bride perfect.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Bland uninspired
- By Holcomb on 10-02-12
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Melville in Love
- The Secret Life of Herman Melville and the Muse of Moby-Dick
- By: Michael Shelden
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 27
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 25
Herman Melville's epic novel, Moby-Dick, was a spectacular failure when it was published in 1851, effectively ending its author's rise to literary fame. Because he was neglected by academics for so long, and because he made little effort to preserve his legacy, we know very little about Melville, and even less about what he called his "wicked book". Scholars still puzzle over what drove Melville to invent Captain Ahab's mad pursuit of the great white whale.
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4 out of 5 stars
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intriguing
- By Jean on 06-18-16
By: Michael Shelden
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Self Reliance
- By: Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Narrated by: Alana Munro
- Length: 1 hr and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,029
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 869
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Story4 out of 5 stars 859
The most thorough statement of one of Emerson's recurrent themes, the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow his or her own instincts and ideas. It is the source of one of Emerson's most famous quotations, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." This essay is a considered a watershed moment in which transcendentalism became a major cultural movement. An American classic.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Don't buy this
- By Leah L on 07-31-16
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Keats
- A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph
- By: Lucasta Miller
- Narrated by: Sally Scott
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story5 out of 5 stars 42
Miller, through Keats’s poetry, brilliantly resurrects and brings vividly to life, the man, the poet in all his complexity and spirit, living dangerously, disdaining respectability and cultural norms, and embracing subversive politics. Keats was a lower-middle-class outsider from a tragic and fractured family, whose extraordinary energy and love of language allowed him to pummel his way into the heart of English literature; a freethinker and a liberal at a time of repression, who delighted in the sensation of the moment.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Romantic Life
- By David on 05-03-22
By: Lucasta Miller
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Dombey and Son
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 36 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 123
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 68
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
In this carefully crafted novel, Dickens reveals the complexity of London society in the enterprising 1840s as he takes the listener into the business firm and home of one of its most representative patriarchs, Paul Dombey.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Perfect pair
- By Philip on 03-25-08
By: Charles Dickens
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Letters to a Young Poet
- By: Rainer Maria Rilke, Stephen Mitchell - translator
- Narrated by: Stephen Mitchell
- Length: 1 hr and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 261
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 166
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 166
Ranier Maria Rilke challenges you, "...to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answers." Rilke's ability to combine the sensual and the spiritual into an inspired vision of the art of living is brought to vivid life in his letters. Through his eyes, the everyday difficulties of love, sex, solitude, sadness, and doubt are seen as the archetypal elements of the drama called life.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Priceless Recordings of Intense Feeling
- By David on 10-08-04
By: Rainer Maria Rilke, and others
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Edgar Allan Poe - The Complete Works Collection
- By: Edgar Allan Poe
- Narrated by: Philippe Duquenoy
- Length: 48 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 478
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 398
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Story4 out of 5 stars 390
Edgar Allan Poe was one of the most prolific authors of his time, eventually gaining recognition for his tales of horror and his uncanny ability to paint a macabre picture with words. The Complete Works Collection of Edgar Allan Poe contains over 150 stories and poems, separated into individual chapters, including all of Poe's most notorious works such as The Raven, Annabel Lee, A Dream Within a Dream, Lenore, The Tell-Tale Heart, and many more.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Would recommend to anyone!!!
- By Gail Blackwell on 03-14-18
By: Edgar Allan Poe
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The Sorrows of Young Werther
- By: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 155
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 133
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 133
Werther, a sensitive young artist, finds himself in Wahlheim, a quiet, attractive village in Germany where he seeks solace from the turmoils of love. It is a young spring, and he hopes that arcadian solitude will prove a genial balm to his mind. But his romantic tendency rules otherwise, and he falls in love with Charlotte - Lotte - even though he knows she is affianced to another.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great performance for a classical story.
- By Brandon Shaw on 09-15-17
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Love Letters of Great Men
- By: John C. Kirkland
- Narrated by: Chris Patton
- Length: 2 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 65
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 65
When words of love do not come to you on their own, then listen to these letters. Complete, actual love letters of great men like Lord Byron, John Keats, and Voltaire. Leaders like Henry VIII, George Washington, and Napoléon, who wrote to his beloved Joséphine, "I awake consumed with thoughts of you...." Artists like van Gogh, Mozart, and Beethoven, who famously penned, "Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved...."
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4 out of 5 stars
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For all us hopeless romantics!
- By Stitch on 04-12-13
By: John C. Kirkland
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The Bondwoman's Narrative
- By: Hannah Crafts, edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
- Narrated by: Anna Deavere Smith
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 204
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 119
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 120
An unprecedented historical and literary event, this tale written in the 1850s is the only known novel by a female African American slave, and quite possibly the first novel written by a black woman anywhere. A work recently uncovered by renowned scholar and professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., it is a stirring tale of "passing" and the adventures of a young slave as she makes her way to freedom.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Poor reading of an important book
- By Hilary on 11-15-04
By: Hannah Crafts, and others
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Nostalgia
- Going Home in a Homeless World
- By: Anthony Esolen
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
Alone among the creatures of the world, man suffers a pang both bitter and sweet. It is an ache for the homecoming. The Greeks called it nostalgia. Post-modern man, homeless almost by definition, cannot understand nostalgia. If he is a progressive, dreaming of a utopia to come, he dismisses it contemptuously, eager to bury a past he despises. If he is a reactionary, he sentimentalizes it, dreaming of a lost golden age. In this profound reflection, Anthony Esolen explores the true meaning of nostalgia and its place in the human heart.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Deep and thought provoking.
- By Holly Stockley on 04-24-19
By: Anthony Esolen
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De Profundis
- By: Oscar Wilde
- Narrated by: David McCallion
- Length: 1 hr and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
At its heart, De Profundis is a love letter and is better known as the De Profundis papers. Written in 1897, while Oscar Wilde was imprisoned in Reading Gaol, De Profundis would become one of his best-known works. The papers include Wilde's account of living a lavish lifestyle and his relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas, both of which he credited for his eventual downfall and imprisonment. The second half of the papers is Wilde's account of prison life and his spiritual awakening.
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1 out of 5 stars
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This Work Really Is Wilde Going Off...
- By James E. Lytle on 05-16-21
By: Oscar Wilde
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Measure for Measure
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Royal Shakespeare Company
- Length: 2 hrs and 27 mins
- Original Recording
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 44
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 28
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 27
A performance of the tragi-comedy by the Royal Shakespeare Company. When a young woman is offered the choice of saving a man's life at the price of her own chastity, what should she do? The political and moral corruption of Vienna has driven Duke Vincentio into hiding while his deputy governor, Angelo, is left to revive the old discipline of civic authority. Angelo's first act is to imprison Claudio, a young nobleman who has gotten his betrothed, Juliet, with child.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Highly recommended
- By Todd on 10-16-08
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Why Read Moby-Dick?
- By: Nathaniel Philbrick
- Narrated by: Nathaniel Philbrick
- Length: 2 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 182
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 162
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 164
The New York Times best-selling author of seagoing epics now celebrates an American classic.Moby-Dick is perhaps the greatest of the Great American Novels, yet its length and esoteric subject matter create an aura of difficulty that too often keeps readers at bay. Fortunately, one unabashed fan wants passionately to give Melville's masterpiece the broad contemporary audience it deserves.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A beautiful love letter to an amazing novel
- By Darwin8u on 10-20-12
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The Scarlet Letter
- By: Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Narrated by: Kate Petrie
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,474
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,280
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,278
One of the most important novels in classic literature, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter tackles the subject of adultery, with the notorious Hester Prynne at the forefront of the scandal in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In the beginning of the novel, Hester is serving time in prison for having a child out of wedlock and is forced to wear a scarlet A on her clothing at all times, so she cannot run from her sin no matter where she goes.
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3 out of 5 stars
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missing the introductory???
- By Savannah on 05-20-20
What listeners say about The Divine Magnet
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- russ
- 10-19-17
Divinely beautiful
Such an amazing piece of history. I was always a Moby Dick fan, but this makes me obsessed with Melville in general. Great!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 09-17-17
Melville At His Best
Any additional comments?
Personal and extremely well-narrated. This book is magical and really well done. Great production and narrator.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Listener
- 09-07-17
Hooray! Love Melville!
Any additional comments?
So good. Must have for any Melville fan. Narration is amazing. It's like he's talking to you. 5 stars.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Brent
- 09-21-17
Really Special
Any additional comments?
I'm a big fan of Melville and this just completes me somehow. Totally nerded out with this. Thanks, Talking Book!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Gordy
- 07-27-17
A must for any Melville fan
Where does The Divine Magnet rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
Jim Meskimen does an incredible job capturing the spirit of the period.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Melville himself
What does Jim Meskimen bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
This is a one of a kind performance.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Debra Hartrum
- 01-22-18
Incredible Correspondence captured!
Any additional comments?
This literally seems like it was recorded at the time. Love the attention to detail and the period dialect. Well done to the narrator. Loved it.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 08-16-17
Must have for any Melville Fan
Any additional comments?
I don't generally listen to books like this but what the hell! It was great. Transported back through time.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Tal
- 10-05-17
Must Read Melville
Intimate letters between Melville and Hawthorne. I'm a big fan of both so it's is a big deal. If you like literary history, period pieces or just damn fine writing go and get this book.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Adam
- 08-10-17
Melville Fans!
If you love Melville, Historical letters or even just have a Moby Dick curiosity, this is a insanely fascinating book of Melville's letters to Hawthorne. Meskimen is one of my favorite narrators.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 08-30-17
Magical Narration
Any additional comments?
A must have for any Melville fan. Amazing narration from the reader. really felt sucked into the time.
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