Channeling Melville

Sum­mary

After being given a mys­te­ri­ous antique scrimshaw (carved wal­rus ivory) by a friend, I decode its mean­ing, and deter­mine whether it is real or fake, using Her­man Melville’s life and most famous work, and my own fam­ily his­tory (who con­tain such famous peo­ple as Peter Drucker, the so-called “Father of Man­age­ment” and Eve Arnold, OBE) as a guide as I fig­ure out what its worth on my way to auction.

Just like a game, but only in real life, and very real.

The book will appeal to fans of Her­man Melville, Antiques Road­show, his­tor­i­cal and naval non-fiction, and feminist/African-American and LGBT revi­sion­ist history.

And those who rum­mage around garbage, um antique shops for that secret bar­gain. For those of you who want the expe­ri­ence with­out the dust and the mold, feel free to take a whirl at a sem­blance of the expe­ri­ence at the game below. Some­times it can even be quite excit­ing. When the attack of the dust mites doesn’t sti­fle you to death.

Not to men­tion fans of the Da Vinci Code should be sit­ting on the edge of their seats. And defi­nately in addi­tion to buy­ing my book want to play this game.

It is a story that weaves its way through 19^th cen­tury New Eng­land whal­ing and both Amer­i­can and British nau­ti­cal his­tory, slav­ery, the South Pacific and even wends its way through Nazi Ger­many to the present day.

But has lots of swash­buck­ling pirates and trea­sure to keep the most blood­thirsty Long John Silver’s happy.

Lord Long­step has set off on a grand adven­ture across the globe to save the love of his life, Mary. After a whirl­wind hon­ey­moon, a mys­te­ri­ous secret soci­ety has kid­napped Mary Long­step for her mys­ti­cal pow­ers. The DARK soci­ety will use these mys­ti­cal trea­sures for evil pur­poses unless stopped! Embark on a turn of the cen­tury Hid­den Object adven­ture across the globe in a tale of intrigue and mys­tery to reunite the star crossed lovers in, Save our Spirit! Down­load free trial (164.53 Mb) Buy full ver­sion

Down­load free trial (164.53 Mb)

Buy full version

Plus of course much more.…which I’m not giv­ing away. But you can amuse your­self by play­ing this game instead, if you want.

Or pre­buy­ing my book. Hint hint.

It also con­tains a nod towards mod­ern day envi­ron­men­tal­ism and human rights with an odd bit of bank­ing intrigue thrown in as well.

My Can­ni­bal, as I dub the piece (for like Melville’s Quee­queq, it is a tat­tooed stranger to most) is indeed, a sort of Rosetta Stone, set against the pages of a unique, real, and largely untold, if not for­got­ten or largely mis­in­ter­preted history.

My final analy­sis is that it is a for­got­ten valen­tine, made at the bequest of the youngest Roth­schild heir, for Melville.  I prove this in the book.

Detailed Expla­na­tion of Book with audi­ence analysis

The book is writ­ten with the page turn­ing read of a his­tor­i­cal thriller, with plenty of humor to engage a lay audi­ence.  Its style and the sub­ject mat­ter itself will appeal to sev­eral demo­graph­ics not nor­mally attracted to naval his­tory.  Namely women, gay men and eth­nic minorities.

There are also more than a few jaw-dropping rev­e­la­tions along the way that could eas­ily be dis­cussed in sev­eral aca­d­e­mic presses for sev­eral sea­sons to come.  At least.  This includes the rev­e­la­tion of how Melville por­trayed two real his­tor­i­cal char­ac­ters in Moby Dick, the first two fore­run­ners of the abo­li­tion­ist movement.

My bat­tle against the beady eyed Back-Office Lizards that com­prise the 21^st Cen­tury auc­tion houses, museum cura­tors and his­to­ri­ans I must inter­act with to find the true story and value of my piece, rounds out the book with a David and Goliath strug­gle against hid­den power bro­kers who can only relate to things, not people.

The romance of the era (includ­ing pirates and hid­den trea­sure) not to men­tion the mys­tery of the story and the con­tin­u­ing ten­sion of whether the antique is real or fake, I think, will appeal to every­one who’s dreamt of find­ing hid­den trea­sure in the attic.  It is, after all, a true story, with all the romance of a fairy tale, with plenty of star turns by celebri­ties, mostly dead.

Includ­ing the walrus.

What Do You Get Out of This?

This is my first exper­i­men­ta­tion with sell­ing books online.  So, to get you started, I have included the first few chap­ters for free.  The first one starts below, and the next four chap­ters are attached as PDF’s so you get a good taste gratis.

I intend to both sell and mar­ket the book online.  But in the mean­time, check out the story, and let me know what you think.  If you help me out and buy what I’ve got already, I’ll com­plete the last chap­ters and sell it to my loyal fans for a bet­ter price than the late com­ers, if there’s an audience.

Call it mar­ket test­ing online for a new kind of prod­uct.  Yes, it’s more expen­sive than Ama­zon.  But also con­sider it a legal fundraiser.  I’m in the mid­dle of a few legal bat­tles (I was fired ille­gally and haven’t worked for three years) so con­sider it an act of char­ity where you get enter­tained as well.  It will be much appre­ci­ated.  And I hope that you’ll have fun.

It’s an eye opener, that’s for sure.  And con­tains things that nobody’s ever heard before about scrimshaw, Melville and Ol’ Moby.

A whale of a tale, excuse the pun, that should keep you laugh­ing, fas­ci­nated, and hope­fully com­ing back for more.

Oh, and it goes with­out say­ing that dona­tions are always wel­come. Or even stick around awhile and amuse your­self by play­ing a game as pro­vided. It’s not all seri­ous you know. Some­times it’s even good to have some FUN!

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