The Divine Magnet: Herman Melville's Letters to Nathaniel Hawthorne

"Here is Melville at his most inspired and numinous; every perfervid yet finely honed paragraph is a philosophy, recalling Shelley's essays. [...] Niemeyer's probing and nuanced introduction dissects the controversies over Melville's feelings toward Hawthorne and situates the letters and the other works within this unresolved context. [...] Niemeyer's volume provides an invaluable reminder of Melville's philosophical fecundity, seeded by Hawthorne's inspiring and enigmatic influence." -- David Greven, Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies