Texas Tech University

John Samson

The author of White Lies: Melville's Narratives of Fact, John Samson is concerned with historical, theoretical, and aesthetic approaches to American novels and non-fictional prose narratives.  

Ph.D. Cornell

Book and Collection

White Lies: Melville's Narrative of Facts (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), xii + 246 pp.

Recontextualizing Eighteenth-Century American Narratives, With Daniel E. Williams. Special Issue of The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation 34(1993): 96 pp.

Book Chapters and Articles

“Socialism,” in American History through Literature 1870-1920, ed. Tom Quirk and Gary Scharnhorst (Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2006), pp. 1060-64.

“Wealth,” in American History through Literature 1870-1920, ed. Tom Quirk and Gary Scharnhorst Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2006), pp. 1180-86.

“Melville,” in American Literary Scholarship 2003, ed. Gary Scharnhorst (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), pp. 47-64.

“Melville,” in American Literary Scholarship 2002, ed. David Nordloh (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), pp. 39-58.

“Melville,” in American Literary Scholarship 2001, ed. Gary Scharnhorst (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), pp. 49-65.

“Melville,” in American Literary Scholarship 2000, ed. David Nordloh (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002), pp. 45-60.

“Melville,” in American Literary Scholarship 1999, ed. Gary Scharnhorst (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001), pp. 53-69.

“Melville,” in American Literary Scholarship 1998, ed. David Nordloh (Durham: Duke University Press, 2000), pp. 45-60.

“Melville,” in American Literary Scholarship 1997, ed. Gary Scharnhorst (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999), pp. 45-60.

“Melville,” in American Literary Scholarship 1996, ed. David Nordloh (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998), pp. 53-66.

“Melville,” in American Literary Scholarship 1995, ed. Gary Scharnhorst (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997), pp. 49-59.

“Personal Narratives, Journal and Diaries,” in America and the Sea: A Literary History, ed. Haskell Springer (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995), pp. 83-98.

“Religion in Contemporary American Fiction,” in Religion and Society in Contemporary America, ed. Donald Turner Heidelberg: German American Institute [American Studies Background Paper No. 1], 1984), pp. 18-28.

“Melville's Theoretical Territory: Elemental Contingency and Nomadic Lines of Flight,” Intertexts 2(1998): 62-73.

“Introduction,” The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation 34(1993): 195-98.

“Politics Gothicized: The Conway Incident and The Castle of Otranto,” Eighteenth-Century Life 10(1986): 145-58.

“Profaning the Sacred: Melville's Omoo and Missionary Narratives,” American Literature 56(1984): 496-508.

“The Dynamics of History and Fiction in Melville's Typee,” American Quarterly 36(1984): 276-90.

“Hawthorne's Oak Trees,” American Literature 52(1980): 457-61.

Encyclopedia Entries and Reviews

An Encyclopedia of American Literature of the Sea and Great Lakes, ed. Jill B. Gidmark (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001): “[Clemens, Samuel Langhorne] ‘Mark Twain,'” pp. 82-83; “Martin Eden,” pp. 266-67; “Omoo,” pp. 340-41; “A Romance of the Sea-Serpent,” pp. 382-83; “The Sea-Wolf,” p. 404; “Typee,” pp. 452-53; and “White-Jacket,” p. 471.

Reconstituting the American Renaissance by Jay Grossman. Intertexts 6(2004): 97-99.

The Sign of the Cannibal, by Geoffrey Sanborn. Nineteenth-Century Literature 54(1999): 253-55.

The Sea Voyage Narrative, by Robert Foulke. The American Neptune 58(1998): 389

Puritan London,” by Tai Liu. The Eighteenth Century: A Current Bibliography, n.s. 12(1992): 100-01.

The Pastoral Mode, by Brian Loughery.  The Eighteenth Century: A Current Bibliography n.s. 10(1989): 474.

Marvell, Nabokov: Childhood and Arcadia, by Michael Long. The Eighteenth Century: A Current Bibliography n.s. 10(1989): 665.

The Sagebrush Bohemian: Mark Twain in California, by Nigey Lennon. Western Historical Quarterly 23(1992): 371-72.

Editorial Board

The Eighteenth Century Theory and Interpretation, 1984-present;

Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies, 2006-present

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Associate Professor
American Literature

Email: john.samson@ttu.edu
Office: 481