Melville Society
The Melville Society, is an organization for the study of author Herman Melville. Founded in 1945, the Society was a result of the Melville Revival of the 1920s and 1930s and is now the oldest American society devoted to a single literary figure.
Its primary publication is Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies, issued three times per year. The society has formed a cultural project in collaboration with the New Bedford Whaling Museum, the host of the Melville Society Archive, and has an editorial office at Hofstra University. It meets primarily at the American Literature Association and Modern Language Association annual conferences and has also held international meetings. It has approximately 400 members, comprising both individuals and institutions.The society was founded in February of 1945 by Harrison Hayford and Tyrus Hillway, who had both studied with Stanley Williams, the Yale professor of English. The membership included both academic and public figures involved in the Melville Revival of the 1920s and 1930s created a group of Melville enthusiasts, and in the late 1930s university graduate programs began to train scholars in American literature.
Among the presidents were Willard Thorp (1952
