Elizabeth Shaw Melville | History of American Women

Elizabeth Shaw Melville | History of American Women: Wife of Author Herman Melville Elizabeth Shaw Melville copied her husband’s works and edited his manuscripts when asked, before and after his death. She was devoted to the author, even when his behavior was erratic. Elizabeth Shaw was born June 13, 1822 in Boston, Massachusetts. She was the daughter of Elizabeth Knapp Shaw and Lemuel Shaw, Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court and an old friend of the Melville family. It seems that everyone called her Lizzie. Her siblings were all boys, John Oakes, Lemuel and Samuel Savage Shaw. Herman Melville (1819-1891) was not only a novelist and a poet, he was also an adventurer. In 1841, he signed on the whaler Acushnet, on a three-year whaling voyage. He...Read Article