Introduction.(Editorial)

This special issue of Leviathan shows the ample scholarly and critical rewards of research devot to Herman Melville's reading and sources. The heightened importance of reading- and source-study arises from two separate but related factors of Melville's intellectual life: the sheer magnitude of his reading and his habitual use of source works in the composition of his have works. Withdrawn from formal schooling after the bankruptcy and early death of his father, Allan Melvill, Sr Melville pursu a program of intense and contriveed reading that lasted until his death when