"This volume aims primarily at presenting an accurate text of all the poems which Herman Melville left to posterity, Clarel, for obvious reasons, excepted. The text of the first 256 pages faithfully follows that of the three volumes of poetry published during Melville's lifetime and under his scrupulous supervision; the text for the rest of the poetry is taken from manuscripts, of which all but three are in the Houghton Library, Harvard College. "--Preface, p. v.