Pgs. xliv & xlv of Raymond Weaver’s Introduction in David Markson’s copy of Shorter Novels of Herman Melville by Herman Melville:

     On which Markson has underlined the passage where Weaver describes Melville’s retirement from literature:
     “He challenged the world with his genius, and the world defeated him by ignoring the challenge and starving him. He stopped writing because he had failed and because he had no choice but to accept the world’s terms: there is no mystery here. This was not insanity, but common sense.”

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     One constant theme in both Markson’s tetralogy—The Notecard Quartet, as I call it—and in my discussions here on Reading Markson Reading is that of society’s tendency to undervalue its greatest geniuses (especially in the arts).

     There aren’t many writers more underappreciated than Melville during his lifetime that have in the subsequent years grown into titans in the literary canon.

     Moby Dick is now almost unanimously seen as one of the few “GREAT AMERICAN NOVELS.”

     But during Melville’s lifetime…

     “So much trash belonging to the worst school of Bedlam literature.
     The London Anthenaeum called Moby Dick.”
     Wrote Markson in Vanishing Point on pg. 156.

     He challenged the world with his genius, and the world defeated him by ignoring the challenge and starving him.

     “At one juncture during his years as a customs inspector on the New York docks, Melville was forced to take a cut in salary—from $4.00 to $3.60 per day.”
     Wrote Markson in The Last Novel on pg. 153.

     “Melville’s lifetime earnings from his fiction— from more than forty-five years— would appear to barely exceed ten thousand dollars.”
     Wrote Markson in This Is Not A Novel on pg. 164.

     “No man has a right to set himself up as a lecturer at $50 per night who cannot for one minute take his eyes from his manuscript.
     Said a Rockford, Illinois, newspaper about Melville.”
     Wrote Markson in Vanishing Point on pg. 60.

     “Fifteen years after Moby Dick, Melville had to pay to publish Clarel. With borrowed money.”
      Wrote Markson in Reader’s Block on pg. 120.

     “No one expressed interest in publishing Billy Budd until thirty-three years after Melville’s [death].”
     Wrote Markson in The Last Novel on pg. 22.

     He stopped writing because he had failed and because he had no choice but to accept the world’s terms.

     This was not insanity, but common sense.

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     David Markson’s copy of Shorter Novels of Herman Melville by Herman Melville is owned by Ethan Nosowsky. The above scan is used with his permission. Copyright © Ethan Nosowsky.