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The writing career of Herman Melville (1819 – 1891) peaked early, with his early novels, such as ‘Typee’ becoming best sellers. By the mid-1850s his popularity declined sharply, and by the time he died he had been largely forgotten. Yet in time his novel ‘Moby Dick’ came to be regarded as one of the finest works of American, and indeed world, literature, as was ‘Billy Budd’, which was not published until long after his death, in 1924.

Although many books have been influential on their times, Abraham Lincoln is said to have suggested that ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ caused the American civil war. When Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) wrote the book, she could not have envisaged its success – sales of the book in the nineteenth century were second only to the bible, and she became a central figure in the fight against slavery.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 -1910) alias Mark Twain, is considered one of America’s greatest ever writers. Not only did he write enormously popular novels, such as ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’, but also a series of classic travel books, including ‘Life on the Mississippi’ and ‘The Innocents Abroad’. Probably his finest work is ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’, which is rated as one of the finest American novels ever written.