Redburn: His First Voyage is the fourth book by the American writer Herman Melville, first published in London in 1849. The book is semi-autobiographical and recounts the adventures of a refined youth among coarse and brutal sailors and the seedier areas of Liverpool. Melville wrote Redburn in less than ten weeks. While one scholar describes it as "arguably his funniest work", scholar F. O. Matthiessen calls it "the most moving of its author's books before Moby-Dick"

Redburn: His First Voyage is the fourth book by the American writer Herman Melville, first published in London in 1849.

This is the extended and annotated edition including an extensive biographical annotation about the author and his life. Redburn is a semi-autobiographical novel concerning the sufferings of a refined youth among coarse and brutal sailors and the seedier areas of Liverpool. This theme of a youth confronted by realities and evils for which he is unprepared—or incorrectly prepared by both family and American institutions—is a prominent one in Melville's works. (from wikipedia.com)

"Wellingborough, as you are going to sea, suppose you take this shooting-jacket of mine along; it's just the thing--take it, it will save the expense of another. You see, it's quite warm; fine long skirts, stout horn buttons, and plenty of pockets." Out of the goodness and simplicity of his heart, thus spoke my elder brother to me, upon the eve of my departure for the seaport. "And, Wellingborough," he added, "since we are both short of money, and you want an outfit, and I Have none to give, you may as well take my fowling-piece along, and sell it in New York for what you can get.--Nay, take it; it's of no use to me now; I can't find it in powder any more." I was then but a boy. Some time previous my mother had removed from New York to a pleasant village on the Hudson River, where we lived in a small house, in a quiet way. Sad disappointments in several plans which I had sketched for my future life; the necessity of doing something for myself, united to a naturally roving disposition, had now conspired within me, to send me to sea as a sailor. For months previous I had been poring over old New York papers, delightedly perusing the long columns of ship advertisements, all of which possessed a strange, romantic charm to me. Over and over again I devoured such announcements as the following: "FOR BREMEN. "The coppered and copper-fastened brig Leda, having nearly completed her cargo, will sail for the above port on Tuesday the twentieth of May. For freight or passage apply on board at Coenties Slip." To my young inland imagination every word in an advertisement like this, suggested volumes of thought. A brig! The very word summoned up the idea of a black, sea-worn craft, with high, cozy bulwarks, and rakish masts and yards. Coppered and copper-fastened! That fairly smelt of the salt water! How different such vessels must be from the wooden, one-masted, green-and- white-painted sloops, that glided up and down the river before our house on the bank.

This book concerns a young British sailor and his first experiences at sea.