In 1886, after writing poetry exclusively for 30 years, Herman Melville began work on a story about a handsome young sailor popular with his mates who is falsely accused of hatching a mutinous conspiracy. His accuser is master at arms John Claggart, who envies Billy and who is described as “defective or abnormal” and “possessing a natural depravity”. Upon learning of the charges, ship’s captain Vere summons the two to his cabin. When Claggart states his case, Billy, who stutters, cannot respond and in frustration strikes Claggart dead. The captain recognizes that Billy’s action bore no malice and that he is morally innocent, yet he is duty-bound to conduct court-martial proceedings.

Melville labored fitfully on the story for five years, yet it was unfinished at the time of Melville’s death in 1891. His widow, Elizabeth, discovered the 351 leaves of manuscript in a chaotic state, with a dizzying array of corrections, annotations, cancellations, and cut and pasted leaves. She attempted to organize the multiple drafts into a coherent storyline but ended up stashing the manuscript in a tin box. It was discovered in 1919 at his granddaughter’s house by Raymond M. Weaver, a Columbia professor researching a biography of Melville. Scholars have since determined that it was written in three phases, with each of the three main characters added at each phase. Billy Budd was at last published by Weaver in 1924 and again in 1928, and was hailed as a masterpiece, standing alongside Moby-Dick as one of the great books of all time.