Billy Budd is a novella begun in November 1888 by American author Herman Melville left unfinished at his death in 1891 and not published until 1924. The work has been central to Melville scholarship since it was discovered in manuscript form among Melville's papers in 1919 by Raymond Weaver his first biographer.
It has an ignominious editorial history as poor transcription and misinterpretation of Melville's notes on the manuscript marred the first published editions of the text. For example early versions gave the book's title as Billy Budd Foretopman while it now seems clear Melville intended Billy Budd Sailor: (An Inside Narrative); some versions wrongly included a chapter that Melville had excised as a preface (the correct text has no preface); some versions fail to correct the name of the ship to Bellipotent (from the Latin bellum war and potens powerful) from Indomitable as Melville called her in an earlier draft.