Melville took his final whaling voyage as a harpooner on the Charles & Henry, but left the voyage while on the Hawaiian Islands and returned to America as a sailor on theUnited States, reaching Boston in 1844. By the time Melville reached America once more, his family's fortunes had dramatically improved: his brother Gansevoort had become the secretary for U.S. legation in London under the Polk Administration. Melville could now support himself solely by writing, and his first two novels were notorious successes. In August 1847 Melville married Elizabeth Shaw, daughter of the Chief Justice of Massachusetts, and began a new book, Mardi, which would be published in 1849. The novel was another Polynesian adventure, but its fantastical elements and jarring juxtaposition of styles made it a critical and commercial disappointment. The successes, "Redburn" (1849) and "White-Jacket," (1850) returned to the style that had made Melville famous, but neither work expanded the author's reputation.
In the summer of 1850, under the influence of Nathaniel Hawthorne's, "The Scarlet Letter," Melville bought the Arrowhead farm near Pittsfield so that he could live near Hawthorne, and the two men, who shared similar philosophies, became close. The relationship with Hawthorne reawakened Melville's creative energies, and in 1851 Melville published his most renowned novel, "Moby-Dick." Although now heralded as a landmark work in American literature, the novel received little acclaim upon its release. He followed this with Pierre(1852), a novel that drew from Melville's experiences as a youth, and the modest success Israel Potter (1855). Melville's most significant works outside of "Moby-Dick" include the short stories that he wrote during this time period, including "Bartleby the Scrivener" (1853) and "Benito Cereno" (1855).
In 1856, Melville journeyed to Europe, and he followed this sojourn with the publication of "The Confidence Man" (1857), the final novel that Melville would publish during his lifetime.
