Hershel Parker is the H. Fletcher Brown Professor Emeritus at the University of Delaware. He is co-editor with Harrison Hayford of the landmark Norton Critical Edition of Moby-Dick (1967 and 2001) and Associate General Editor of The Writings of Herman Melville. Parker's landmark 1996 two volume Herman Melville: A Biography is generally regarded as an outstanding exemplar of American literary biography.[citation needed] Parker is an advocate of traditional methods of literary research, which emphasize access to original materials, encourage deliberate study of chronology, and examine the relationship between a literary work and the creative genius of its author.
