I and My Chimney: Stories

The narrative settles upon an old country house dominated by a vast central chimney twelve feet square at its base. Melville follows an aging country gentleman who dotes upon the masonry while his energetic wife schemes to abolish it.

The household becomes a quiet battleground between the narrator’s devotion and his family’s architectural ambitions. The story traces their standoff as a master-mason examines the flues and alleges that a secret closet lies hidden within.

• Satire: Architectural absurdities multiply through a home so warped by its hearth that guests lose their way among nine dining-room doors, including an unfortunate suitor who backs himself into a dark pantry.
• Social Commentary: The ongoing clash over progress versus tradition intensifies as the narrator’s wife patrols the masonry with a geological hammer, tapping each brick for hollow echoes to prove a hidden chamber exists.
• American Literature: Defending his architectural independence, the narrator drafts a defiant reply to the persistent master-mason using a stiff quill plucked from an unruly gander wearing a wooden collar.
• Also by This Author: Moby Dick, Great Short Works of Herman Melville and The Happy Failure.