<DIV>In this study of Melville's <i>Billy Budd, Sailor,</i> renowned Melville scholar Hershel Parker provides the fullest introduction to and analysis of this work to date. It is the first complete reading of <i>Billy Budd</i> to draw on the definitive but neglected Hayford-Sealts Genetic Text. For the first time, it places <i>Billy Budd </i>in the context of Melville's writings and projects of the last decade of his life; and it is the first to present the work as a product of the post-Gilded Age and <i>fin-de-siecle </i>period rather than of the mid-century high romanticism of <i>Moby-Dick.</i><br></div>