Virtual Tour and Curator Q&A for Billy Budd at 100 Exhibition

Sponsored by The Grolier Club

Curator William Palmer Johnston leads a prerecorded tour of his exhibition “Melville’s Billy Budd at 100” followed by a live online Q&A.

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-tour-and-curator-qa-for-billy-budd-at-100-exhibition-tickets-1027617320067?aff=erelpanelorg

Melville’s Billy Budd at 100 commemorates the centenary of the posthumous and first publication of Herman Melville’s novella Billy Budd (1924), the story of a young “Handsome Sailor” impressed into the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars in the late 18th century, falsely accused of mutiny, and hanged after a drumhead trial for striking and killing his accuser. The exhibition highlights the composition, preservation, discovery, and ongoing transmission of a singular work of art – a “prose and poem concoction” – left unfinished on Melville’s desk at his death in 1891. Curated by Grolier Club member William Palmer Johnston from his extensive Melville Collection, the exhibition features more than 50 items, including multiple scholarly transcriptions of the Billy Budd manuscript, as well as illustrations, photographs, dust jackets, movie posters, the opera libretto, playbills, a commemorative stamp, unique fine bindings for limited editions, and artwork by Barry Moser. Accompanying the exhibition is a catalogue published by the Grolier Club and a symposium on Oct 9, 2024 that is being livestreamed.