Published in 1924, [a:Herman Melville|1624|Herman Melville|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1495029910p2/1624.jpg]'s [b:Billy Budd|831409|Billy Budd|Herman Melville|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1552150211l/831409.SY75.jpg|2764239] was completed in 1891. It was Melville's last work.
 Melville was an American author who wrote great works, but when you read him you can see why many scholars of American literature say [a:Mark Twain|1244|Mark Twain|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1322103868p2/1244.jpg]'s writing marked the beginning of American literature. Melville's prose is deep and ponderous and makes you think of the English writers of that era. Twain's style was open, fresh and, of course, humorous.
 The copy I have has a forward and afterward by James Gunn, a writer known for his science fiction.
 Times have changed since Billy Budd was written and since Gunn wrote about it in this 1988 edition. Gunn describes the key relationship in the novel, that of a superior officer who accuses Billy Budd, a sailor, as one shrouded in mystery. The officer, Claggart, hates Budd enough that he wants to cause his downfall. Gunn says he has no idea why. Simple evil?
 It's obvious reading it now that Claggart is a suppressed homosexual who is enamored of Budd and the times being what they were—the novel takes place in 1797—would be risking ruin if he acted on his desires.
 Melville points to this with what now read as billboards but in his day (and beyond) escaped notice. The novel's title is often rendered as Billy Budd, the Handsome Sailor and Melville describes the beauty of Budd's skin and general looks in a way usually reserved for maidens:

 When Claggart's unobserved glance happened to light on belted Billy rolling along the upper gun deck in the leisure of the second dogwatch, exchanging passing broadsides of fun with other young promenaders in the crowd, that glance would follow the cheerful sea Hyperion with a settled meditative and melancholy expression, his eyes strangely suffused with incipient feverish tears. Then would Claggart look like the man of sorrows. Yes, and sometimes the melancholy expression would have in it a touch of soft yearning, as if Claggart could even have loved Billy but for fate and ban.