Billy Budd, Sailor

"Billy Budd, Sailor" has been called the best short novel ever written. In his brilliantly condensed narrative prose, Herman Melville fashions a legal parable in which reason and intellect prove incapable of preserving innocence in the face of evil. For all those who feel themselves threatened by a hostile and inflexible environment, there is special significance in this haunting story of a handsome sailor who becomes a victim of man's intransigence.

Since its posthumous publication in 1924, "Billy Budd" has become one of the acknowledged masterpieces of American literature.