Exiled Royalties: Melville and the Life We ImagineExiled Royalties is a literary biographical study of the course of Melville's career from his experience in Polynesia through his retirement from the New York Custom House and his composition of three late volumes of poetry and Billy Budd, Sailor. The ten essays in the book are rooted in a belief that Melville's work, as Charles Olson said, must be left in his own 'life, ' which for Milder means primarily his spiritual, psychological, and vocational