After this author went into debt buying a 160-acre farm, he published a novel about Pierre Glendinning Jr. titled Pierre; or, The Ambiguities, whose poor reception crippled his finances even more. For 10 points each:
[10e] Name this author who struggled financially after the hostile reaction in the US to his novel Moby-Dick.
ANSWER: Herman Melville
[10h] Melville's inconsistent income led him to struggle to find a publisher for this novel about a character who fights at the Battle of Bunker Hill and spends fifty years in exile after the British capture him.
ANSWER: Israel Potter: His Fifty Years in Exile
[10m] Though he struggled with rheumatism that hurt his finances, Melville saw slight success with this novella, in which a figurehead reading “Follow your leader” falls off the San Dominick.
ANSWER: Benito Cereno
<Noah Sheidlower, American Literature>