Hero, Captain, and Stranger

"No other writer on Melville has written so candidly and fully and convincingly on the centrality of male bonding and same-sex love in Melville's work. Robert Martin is the only critic to trace the theme with such thoroughness. Moreover, he handles the subject with the subtlety it requires."--James E. Miller, Jr., University of Chicago

"With a daring worthy of Melville's daring, and a power of discrimination worthy of his daring, Martin has broken fertile new ground and put Melville scholarship deeply in his debt."--Review