Melville's own income remained limited. But in 1884, Lizzie received a legacy that enabled him to buy a steady stream of books and prints each month.[137] Melville retired on December 31, 1885,[127] after several of his wife's relatives further supported the couple with supplementary legacies and inheritances. On February 22, 1886, Stanwix, their younger son, died in San Francisco at age 36, from tuberculosis.[138] In 1889, Melville became a member of the New York Society Library.[137]
Melville had a modest revival of popularity in England when readers rediscovered his novels. He published two collections of poems inspired by his early experiences at sea, with prose head notes. Intended for his relatives and friends, each had a print run of 25 copies. The first, John Marr and Other Sailors, was published in 1888, followed by Timoleon in 1891.
Melville died on the morning of September 28, 1891. His death certificate shows "cardiac dilation" as the cause.[139] He was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in Bronx, New York City.[140]
The New York Times' initial death notice called his masterpiece "Mobie Dick", the misspelling of which was later erroneously taken to mean that he was unappreciated at his time of death.[141][142] But there were some appreciations. The Times, for instance, published a substantial article of appreciation on October 2. The author said that thinking back to Melville's books that were so much read forty years earlier, there is "no difficulty determining why they were then read and talked about," but the difficulty is "to discover why they are read and talked about no longer."[143]
Melville left a volume of poetry, Weeds and Wildings, and a sketch, "Daniel Orme", unpublished at the time of his death. His wife also found pages for an unfinished novella, titled Billy Budd. Melville had revised and rearranged the manuscript in several stages, leaving the pages in disarray. Lizzie could not decide her husband's intentions (or even read his handwriting in some places) and abandoned attempts to edit the manuscript for publication. The pages were stored in a family breadbox until 1919 when Melville's granddaughter gave them to Raymond Weaver. Weaver, who initially dismissed the work's importance, published a quick transcription in 1924. This version, however, contained many misreadings, some of which affected interpretation. It was an immediate critical success in England, then in the United States. In 1962, the Melville scholars Harrison Hayford and Merton M. Sealts published a critical reading text that was widely accepted.[144] It was adapted as a stage play on Broadway in 1951, then an opera, and in 1961 as a film.[127]
