DISCOVERING HERMAN MELVILLE IN LONDON

Because of some problem with the bus route I wanted to use, I walked from Trafalgar Square to Embankment Underground station. On my way I passed the southern end of Craven Street. There I saw an old building – the end of a terrace – with a commemorative plaque, which I examined.

The circular blue plaque commemorates the house in which the author of “Moby Dick” – Herman Melveille (1819-1891 – lived for a few weeks at the end of 1849. He had come to London:

“… secure a publishing deal for his new novel “White-Jacket”, or, the “World in a Man-of-War” (1850) and to gather material for an account of the American revolutionary Israel Potter (published 1855).” [see: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/herman-melville/ ]

Originally known as ‘Spur Alley’, Craven Street was rebuilt by the Craven family in about 1730. Melville stayed in one of the surviving original buildings.

Apart from Melville, Craven Street included amongst its dwellers: Benjamin Franklin, the poets Mark Akenside & Heinrich Heine, and the haematologist William Hewson.

Franklin’s home is open to the public. I have visited it once. But when I visited it a few years ago, I had not known that Melville had lived in the same street, albeit briefly.

Had the bus route been functioning normally, many years might have passed before, if ever, I saw the sign commemorating Melville.