The Nexus Archive
American Novel · Novel
Billy Budd, Foretopman
by Melville · The Sea's Metaphysician · 19th-century America, 1819-1891
Melville's unfinished sea tale pits innocence, envy, martial law, and judgment aboard a British warship.
- Advanced
- ~2 hr 15 min read
- 2 chapter guides
- Public domain
Start reading · Read the VII guide free
Before the text
Editor's Prelude
The Handsome Sailor and the Drumhead Court
Prepared by the NEXUS Editors
In Billy Budd, a young sailor is taken from a merchant ship into the British navy in 1797. His beauty and easy goodwill win affection, while a stammer leaves him vulnerable when strong feeling blocks his speech.
Billy's beauty and stammer, Claggart's accusation, and Captain Vere's legal decision compress innocence, evil, and institutional necessity into a case no single moral vocabulary can settle.
Vere's appeals to duty stand beside the surgeon's doubts and the crew's affection for Billy. The tale repeatedly offers a judgment, complicates it, and asks how law should weigh a person it believes innocent.
The opening pages
BILLY BUDD, FORETOPMAN
WHAT BEFELL HIM IN THE YEAR OF
THE GREAT MUTINY, Etc.
Friday, Nov. 16, 1888—begun.
Revision begun—March 2, 1889.
Finished—April 19, 1891.
DEDICATED
TO
JACK CHASE
ENGLISHMAN
WHEREVER THAT GREAT HEART MAY NOW BE
HERE ON EARTH OR HARBOURED IN PARADISE
CAPTAIN OF THE MAIN-TOP
IN THE YEAR 1843
IN THE U.S. FRIGATE
‘UNITED STATES’
I
BILLY BUDD, FORETOPMAN
(An inside Narrative)
In the time before steamships, or then more frequently than now, a stroller along the docks of any considerable seaport would occasionally have his attention arrested by a group of bronzed marines, man-of-war’s men or merchant sailors in holiday attire ashore on liberty. In certain instances they would flank, or, like a bodyguard, quite surround some superior figure of their own class, moving along with them like Aldebaran among the lesser lights of his constellation. That signal object was the ‘Handsome Sailor’ of the less prosaic time alike of the military and merchant navies. With no perceptible trace of the vainglorious about him, rather with the off-hand unaffectedness of natural regality, he seemed to accept the spontaneous homage of his shipmates. A somewhat remarkable instance recurs to me. In Liverpool, now half a century ago, I saw under the shadow of the great dingy street-wall of Prince’s Dock (an obstruction long since removed) a common sailor, so intensely black that he must needs have been a native African of the unadulterate blood of Ham. A symmetric figure much above the average height. The two ends of a gay silk handkerchief thrown loose about the neck danced upon the displayed ebony of his chest; in his ears were big hoops of gold, and a Scotch Highland bonnet with a tartan band set off his shapely head.
It was a hot noon in July; and his face, lustrous with perspiration, beamed with barbaric good-humour. In jovial sallies right and left, his white teeth flashing into view, he rollicked along, the centre of a company of his shipmates. These were made up of such an assortment of tribes and complexions as would have well fitted them to be marched up by Anacharsis Cloots before the bar of the first French Assembly as Representatives of the Human Race. At each spontaneous tribute rendered by the wayfarers to this black pagod of a fellow—the tribute of a pause and stare, and less frequent an exclamation—the motley retinue showed that they took that sort of pride in the evoker of it which the Assyrian priests doubtless showed for their grand sculptured Bull when the faithful prostrated themselves. To return⸺
Chapter guides · 2
VII
Billy Joins the Indomitable
Billy Budd is taken from a merchant ship for naval service in 1797. He adjusts readily, while the narrative places his new ship against the recent fleet mutinies.
Leaving the Rights-of-Man
Captain Graveling calls Billy his peacemaker and protests losing him. Billy accepts the transfer without resistance and cheerfully bids his old ship goodbye, a farewell Lieutenant Ratcliffe mistakes for a sly protest. Aboard the Indomitable, Billy is rated an able seaman and assigned to the foretop. He cannot read, knows nothing of his parents, and can stutter when strong feeling overtakes him.
Vere and the master-at-arms
The mutinies have been suppressed, but impressment and discontent remain. Captain Vere combines concern for his men with strict discipline; his reading reinforces his settled convictions. The crew circulates stories about the past of Claggart, the master-at-arms, but the narrator does not establish them as fact. Claggart rose quickly from the lowest duties to his post, and he polices the lower decks through the ship's corporals, whose hidden influence can quietly trouble any sailor.
XVII
The Accusation and the Blow
Claggart accuses Billy of dangerous disaffection. When Vere brings them together privately, Billy cannot answer the charge and strikes Claggart dead. Vere announces a drum-head court, and the surgeon is left to wonder whether the captain is unhinged.
Questions readers ask
- How long does it take to read Billy Budd, Foretopman?
- About 2 hr 15 min in total.
- How difficult is Billy Budd, Foretopman?
- Advanced. A mid-length novel; about 2 hours of reading.
- Can I read Billy Budd, Foretopman for free?
- Billy Budd, Foretopman is part of Nexus Premium, so reading it needs an account and a Premium subscription. The opening above and one chapter guide on this page are free to read.
- How many chapter guides are there?
- 2 chapter guides, written by the Nexus editors. One opens in full here; the rest show their opening line.
About Melville
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short-story writer, and poet. Moby-Dick joins maritime labor, biblical rhetoric, comic catalog, scientific curiosity, metaphysical pressure, and tragic obsession.
“What does the mind do when the world refuses to give up its meaning?”
Melville became one of the central voices of American literature, especially for readers drawn to symbolic depth, philosophical difficulty, and the danger of obsession.
Source text: public domain. Chapter guides: original Nexus writing. Billy Budd, Foretopman is part of The Nexus Archive, guided Quests through the great works.