Gansevoort Melville, speeches and more on Melvilliana

The New York Public Library Digital Collections

For anyone looking into the life and times of Herman Melville's brilliant older brother Gansevoort Melville (1815-1846), here are links to relevant posts on Melvilliana, starting with those containing transcriptions (partial, mostly) of Gansevoort's political speeches.

Speeches by Gansevoort Melville

• Gansevoort Melville on Repeal, 1842
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/11/gansevoort-melville-on-repeal-reported.html

• at Tammany Hall, 1842
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2012/05/gansevoort-melville-at-tammany-hall.html

• Great Sailors' Meeting, April 1843
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2012/05/early-political-speech-by-gansevoort.html

• rousing Repeal speech, September 1843
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2011/08/rousing-speech-for-irish-repeal-by.html

• another Repeal speech
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2011/08/another-repeal-speech-by-gansevoort.html

• November 1843: "Aye my men! That is the talk!"
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2011/08/aye-my-men-that-is-talk.html

• at Washington Hall
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2012/05/gansevoort-melville-at-washington-hall.html

• Jackson Jubilee, March 15, 1844 ("Truth can never die.")
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2012/11/truth-can-never-die-gansevoort-melville.html

• Liked in Waterloo, loved in Cadiz
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2018/06/liked-in-waterloo-loved-in-cadiz.html

• Nashville in August 1844, democracy as "heaven-born spirit of progress." https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2016/12/democracy-as-heaven-born-spirit-of.html

• New York City on June 12, 1844, at "grand supper" for Governor Bouck
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2012/10/gansevoort-speaks-at-grand-supper-for.html

• in Columbus, Ohio
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2016/02/gansevoort-melville-in-columbus-ohio-i.html

• Gansevoort Melville on Theodore Frelinghuysen
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2015/07/gansevoort-melville-on-frelinghuysen.html

• 1845 parody of Gansevoort Melville on Oregon
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2014/01/1845-parody-of-gansevoort-melville-on.html

Letters

• Report to Andrew Jackson, September 1844
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2015/11/gansevoort-melville-reports-to-andrew.html

• Allan Melville gets Gansevoort's ticket to the ball
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/05/allan-melville-gets-gansevoorts-ticket.html

• Gansevoort Melville, friends and foes
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/05/gansevoort-melville-friends-and-foes.html

• News from London by Gansevoort Melville
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/09/london-news-from-gansevoort-melville.html

More on Gansevoort Melville

• 1826 letter from Gansevoort Melville to his mother
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2018/02/1826-letter-from-gansevoort-melvill-to.html

• Dancing with Miss Whieldon
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/07/dancing-with-miss-whieldon.html

• Gansevoort in 1829, reading John Franklin
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2018/03/gansevoort-in-1829-reading-john-franklin.html

• Albany Academy, 1831
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2012/07/gansevoort-melville-at-albany-academy.html

• 1834 Albany Journal of Gansevoort Melville
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2014/01/1834-albany-journal-of-gansevoort.html

• Gansevoort's 1834 reading and the Albany Library
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2015/03/gansevoort-melvilles-1834-reading-and_19.html

• Literary allusions to Shakespeare and Sir Walter Scott
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2016/09/literary-allusions-by-gansevoort.html

• Gansevoort as "overgrown schoolboy"
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/11/gansevoort-melville-that-over-grown.html

• Gansevoort Melville's height
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2011/08/gansevoort-melvilles-height.html

• Glimpse of "tall, very tall" Gansevoort Melville
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2016/02/glimpse-of-tall-very-tall-gansevoort.html

• Gansevoort Melville the tall democratic spouter
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2012/05/tall-after-all-gansevoort-melville-tall.html

• Thomas Low Nichols on Gansevoort Melville
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2016/12/thomas-low-nichols-on-gansevoort.html 

• Gansevoort in Richmond, Virginia
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2015/04/gansevoort-melville-in-richmond.html

• Favorable notices of Gansevoort and Herman's books in Richmond Enquirer
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2015/04/favorable-notices-of-gansevoort.html

• Broadway exquisite
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/02/gansevoort-melville-as-broadway.html

• Devil to pay, and no pitch hot
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/11/devil-to-pay-and-no-pitch-hot.html

• Ebenezer Knight, 1811-1853
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/07/ebenezer-knight-1811-1853.html

• 1846 memorial by William Cramer
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/09/gansevoort-melville-1846-memorial-by.html

Published scholarship:

• An Albany Journal of Gansevoort Melville, ed. Jay Leyda. Boston Public Library Quarterly 2 (October 1950) pages 327-347.

• Gansevoort Melville's 1846 London Journal, ed. Hershel Parker. New York Public Library, 1966. 

• Janet Galligani Casey, New Letters of Gansevoort Melville: 1845-1846. Studies in the American Renaissance (1991) pages 141-150.

• Hershel Parker, Herman Melville: A Biography, Volume 1, 1819-1851 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996). See especially chapter 5, In the Shadow of the Young Furrier (pages 84-103); and chapter 16, The Sailor, the Orator, and the Grand Contested Election: 1844 (pages 316-338).