Herman Melville 
Benito Cereno 

A fictionalized account about the revolt on a 19th-century Spanish slavery ship, Benito Cereno was first published in three installments in 1855. Melville scholar Merton M. Sealts, Jr. called the story an oblique comment on those prevailing attitudes toward blacks and slavery in the United States that would ultimately precipitate civil war between North and South. The famous question of what had cast such a shadow upon Cereno was used by American author Ralph Ellison as an epitaph to his 1952 novel Invisible Man, excluding Cereno’s answer, The negro. Over time, Melville’s story has been increasingly recognized as among his greatest achievements.

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Herman Melville (1819 – 1891) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and poet. Although he experienced some success during his lifetime, he quickly faded from literary fame and did not regain popularity until the early 20th century, when Moby Dick was hailed as a literary masterpiece and paved the way for the critical celebration of his other works, including Billy Budd, Benito Cereno, and Bartleby, the Scrivener.