The Piazza Tales is a collection of six short stories by American writer Herman Melville. This works contains some of Melville’s best known shorter works, consisting of six short stories: “The Piazza,” “Bartleby,” “Benito Cereno,” “The Lightning-Rod Man,” “The Encantadas” and “The Bell-Tower,” and a brief biographical sketch that contributes to one’s reading of the texts. While the sea is the natural setting for many of Melville’s best known works, only two of these stories take place on the waters – “The Encantadas” and “Benito Cereno.” (Goodreads)
Herman Melville (born Melvill; (August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are Moby-Dick (1851); Typee (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia; and Billy Budd, Sailor, a posthumously published novella. Although his reputation was not high at the time of his death, the centennial of his birth in 1919 was the starting point of a Melville revival, and Moby-Dick grew to be considered one of the great American novels.