Although chiefly known for his magisterial novel Moby-Dick and for other prose works, Herman Melville (1819-1891) was also a fascinating poet who turned to the art after his serious fiction failed to find appreciative readers. His eccentric verse displays the complexity of thought and verbal richness of his novels, which has led some critics to rank him just below Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson among 19th-century American poets.