White Jacket

Drawing on Melville’s year aboard a U.S. Navy frigate, this vivid novel exposes the harsh, often brutal life of the common sailor—flogging, tyranny, and injustice under the guns of a man-of-war—through the eyes of a seaman known by his makeshift white jacket. Part gripping sea narrative, part passionate social protest, it helped spur the abolition of flogging in the American navy. Rich in detail and moral force, White-Jacket is a powerful indictment of cruelty and a stirring portrait of shipboard life. Both adventure and reform tract, it reveals Melville’s deep sympathy for the oppressed and his mastery of the world of the sea.