In Putnam's Monthly Magazine for October, 1855, appeared the first installment of a sea story entitled Benito Cereno, which was continued and concluded in the November and December numbers. Following the established custom of that periodical, the story was printed without signature: and it remained unacknowledged until the following year, when it was included in The Piazza Tales, a volume of short stories by Herman Melville. Lost for half a century in the oblivion which engulfed all that Melville wrote, it did not again appear in type until its inclusion in the Standard Edition of Constable and Company in 1924. This year it has been republished separately in a limited edition by the Nonesuch Press.