Billy Budd

Billy Budd, Sailor is a novel by American writer Herman Melville, first published posthumously in London in 1924 as revised by Raymond M. Weaver, a professor at Columbia University, and then other versions followed. Melville had begun writing the original work in November 1888, but left it unfinished at his death in 1891. It was acclaimed by British critics as a masterpiece when published in London, and quickly took its place among the canon of significant works in the United States.