Herman Melville

White Jacket Herman Melville

White-Jacket, or The World in a Man-of-War, usually referred to as White-Jacket, is an 1850 novel by Herman Melville and is considered to be a semi-biographical book, written from Melville's own personal experiences while returning home to the Atlantic Coast from the South Seas with the American Navy on a man-o'-war vessel. In the note preceding the novel, Melville states, "In the year 1843 I shipped as 'ordinary seaman' on board of a United States frigate then lying in a harbor of the Pacific Ocean. After remaining in this frigate for more than a year, I was discharged from the service . . ."