NP but Melville

[Mark Kohut]

The great biographer of Herman Melville, Herschel Parker, is ON Facebook,
is a member of the Melville Society group!
Somebody wanted to know if Melville wrote any of MD on the Hudson away from
his Pittsfield place. A regular member wrote,
"you have to check the Herschel Parker definitive biography". Next thing,
Parker, who had never posted before wrote,  "I'm here"

He once told me No, he did not think the punch that Billy Budd hit Captain
Vere with could at all have  been inspired by
that charge circulating about Herman at the time, some decades ago now of
course--that he may have accidentally, involuntarily (in best case)
hit his wife. Been a wife beater.

By the way the other answer is No as well...That is Melville wrote all of *Moby
Dick* at Arrowhead (I believe it was called). (Although we did learn from
someone
else that the Hudson was a whaling ship port for a time)