Unless you're desperate for any Melville criticism at all, don't bother with this Norton Critical Edition. It's one of their less-successful volumes. Lots of crit is included but it's all so chopped up, edited into very tiny chunks and some things (Barbara Johnson on Billy Budd, for instance)that you'd expect to see aren't here at all.

The textual notes are even worse, routinely giving away plot points. I recommend a nicely annotated Penguin or Oxford World Classics edition instead.

Benito Cereno for Round Bay Book Club 2021//22