On one level Melville’s tale is an historical adventure story telling of life aboard ship shortly after the mutiny at Spithead in 1797. Billy is taken from a homeward bound merchantman to serve on the ‘Seventy Four’ HMS Indomitable. He falls foul of Claggart, the ‘Master at Arms’, and the final confrontation results in death. Billy becomes an unwilling martyr - what passes for justice must be implemented because of the rebellious climate of the time. However, below the surface lie some of Melville’s thematic obsessions: the aristocratic savage placed against an inhumanity born of service in time of war, innocence overtaken by fate and the worthy encompassed by the inevitable. The natures of evil and conscience are explored and ‘Billy Budd’ is the author’s “last word upon the strange mystery of himself and human destiny”.

Melville is regarded by many as the finest author America has produced.

Herman Melville (1819 –1891) was an American novelist, essayist and poet. During his lifetime, his early novels were popular, but his popularity declined later in his life. By the time of his death he had nearly been forgotten, but his masterpiece, Moby-Dick (which during his life was largely considered a failure, and responsible for Melville's drop in popularity at the time), was "rediscovered" in the 20th century. Herman Melville was born and educated in New York City. His father described the young Melville as being somewhat slow as a child, and Melville was also weakened by the scarlet fever, which permanently affected his eyesight. The family importing business went bankrupt in 1830, and the family moved to Albany, New York. Melville's roving disposition and a desire to support himself independently of family assistance led him to seek work as a surveyor on the Erie Canal. This effort failed, and his brother helped him get a job as a cabin boy in a New York ship bound for Liverpool.