Benito Cereno

short story by Melville

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Article History

Benito Cereno, short story by Herman Melville, published in Putnam’s Monthly Magazine in 1855 and later included in the collection The Piazza Tales (1856). It is a chilling story narrated by Amasa Delano, the captain of a seal-hunting ship who encounters off the coast of Chile a slave ship whose human cargo has revolted. Although it takes Delano some time to unravel the situation, eventually he saves the title character, who is the captain of the slaver, and his remaining crew, and the leaders of the insurrection are slaughtered. Like “Bartleby the Scrivener,” which Melville had published two years earlier, “Benito Cereno” is dark, powerful, ambiguous, and despairing.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper.