Herman Melville is one of the greatest figures in literary history. His classic Moby Dick is generally considered the finest novel ever written by an American. Yet in Melville’s day Typee was a far more popular book. Largely autobiographical this classic adventure story is set in the South Seas where a runaway sailor is captured by the Typees. Described as “a fierce and unrelenting tribe of savages' the islanders have no intention of letting their captive go.