Arrowhead Farm, where Herman Melville lived with his family and wrote his most famous work, Moby-Dick, is absolutely beautiful—the sun casting green shadows on the yellow wood paneling of the house, the distant haze of Mount Greylock beyond the treetops. Western Massachusetts seems to be a different world from the eastern region, where we have spent most of our trip. Did Melville travel there seeking solitude from the bustling seaboard he once knew and loved?

Melville’s story of how he came to write is absolutely fascinating. Actually, many authors seem to have had similar circumstances that led to their labor in prose. When you hear about their lives, you realize that had one or two major things been different, we wouldn’t have half the famous novels we’ve come to know and love. I will use Melville as an example.

Herman Melville’s father passed away when he was only a young man. His mother, who was part of Dutch aristocracy, had to care for eight children and couldn’t seek work. It was up to Herman and his brother to find work since they were the oldest boys of the family. Herman first tried working on a farm in Ohio, but that venture soon failed. Ultimately, he ended up signing on for an expedition on the whaling vessel called the Acushnet, and the rest is history. Melville used his travel experiences as the basis for most of his novels such as Typee and Omoo. Had the family never gone through the tragedy of losing their father, Melville would most likely never picked up that life at sea which inspired his greatest works.

The “coincidences” don’t end there. When Moby-Dick was released in 1851, several critics praised it, essentially saying, “This book is really something!” However, readers at large didn’t know what to make of the novel. Unlike his commercially successful novels at the beginning of his career, Melville’s new book explored deeper themes such as the duality of man and good vs. evil. Thus, the book was a financial flop.

Fast forward to 1921 when family members of Herman Melville were digging around in the attic. Herman had been dead thirty years and his name wasn’t widely known. Inside a cake box, one of the family members came across Herman Melville’s manuscript for Billy Budd. They sent it to Scribner’s publishing company, which accepted it for publication. Suddenly, there was a rebirth of Melville’s career. It was then that Moby-Dick received rekindled interest leading up to its becoming a criterion of American Literature. If Billy Budd hadn’t been discovered, Melville’s name and legacy would most likely still be largely unknown.

I firmly believe that things happen for a reason. Whether it’s Melville or Emerson or Hawthorne, I believe we are reading their works today because somewhere along the line they were meant to shape our Literature and, consequently, our culture. Taking a note from Melville’s life, we can see how something bad that happens to us today may end up being the starting point for greatness.