James was a Europhile that wrote boring garbage. I'll take the thrill of Melville over his teatime schlock any day.

Samuel Clemons followed by Melville.

>>8057034
James was a brilliant author by 19th century standards.
Melville is the greatest American author of all time and easily in the top ten of the entire english language.
Both are outshone by Walt Whitman though.

anybody here like hamlin garland? had a professor who was obsessed with him

>>8057078
Mark Twain was so quintessentially American. Melville may be the better author technically and conceptually, but he couldn't match the wit & style of Twain.

d o s t o i e v s k i

>>8057087
Twain's wit and style where essentially a journalist, while Melville and Whitman were able to pull themselves over that hump and into true literature.
That said American literature in the 19th century was essentially journalistic with the exception of Emerson's men. Twain was a superior Voltaire, but he never wrote great literature.

It's Dickinson, but Emerson and Melville and James are close.

how come we never have 19th century american lit threads here?

>>8057120
Because posters on /lit/ either 1) hate it because it's American
or
2) think it's the pinnacle of literature

>>8057125
3) Doesn't fit into the /lit/ paradigm of measuring dicks based on the longest/"hardest" according to Goodreads/most annoyingly pomo/MFA program syllabi/MFA program progeny books that can be memed

(Moby-Dick doesn't count, no 19th century American read that shit)

>>8057125
kek this
You cannot discuss Melville, Henry James, or Whitman on this board

>>8057188
>melville
sheeeiiit, meant hawthorne

>>8057034
because there wasn't much competition

>>8057087
Melville's wit and style are absolutely incredible, wtf are you talking about

>>8057111
No, Huck Finn is a remarkable work of art. Geez, you're both extremely fucking wrong.

>>8057034
It's Herman Melville.

The only two people I'd really consider for Great American Novelist are him and Faulkner.

>>8058645
And Dashiell Hammett