Steve Bryant's Picture of the Day: October 2014

This is Arrowhead, Herman Melville's home in Pittsfield Massachusetts. Melville bought it in the first flush of literary success with the earnings from his early works Typee and Omoo. Among the books he wrote here were Moby-Dick and The Piazza Tales. The tales were supposedly composed while sitting around and talking with friends on Melville's piazza. I always imagined some grand porch overlooking a bucolic New England landscape. On the left of the house you will see a porch that runs under a small roof, not more than six feet wide. That is the "piazza."

When Melville's books stopped selling he was forced to sell Arrowhead and move back to New York City where he lived in obscurity til the end of his days. Bummer, man.