Israel Potter by Herman Melville

This book is Melville's reworking of the historical story of Israel Potter, a private at the battle of Bunker Hill who quickly finds himself taken away from his new country and, after a series of intrigues, spends most of his life in poverty in London. This text is marked by Melville's interest in animal metaphors, the extreme gothic tropes (Potter is buried alive in a hidden room in an English house, for instance), and the story's lack of reward for a life well lived--even as Potter experiences one disappointment after another, things keep getting worse. It was initially published serially, which accounts for its episodic nature.