Together the works in this Library of America volume reveal Melville’s obsession with the possibilities of human freedom, the sacrifice of that freedom to the demands of social cohesion, and the submission of social groups—represented by the shipboard community—to traditional forms of authority.

    Classical myths retold by Nathaniel Hawthorne, one of the masters of American literature--King Midas with his Golden Touch, Pandora's Box, The Adventure of Hercules in quest of the golden apples, Bellerophon and the Chimaera, Baucis and Philomon, Perseus, and Medusa.