[1] In 1975, colleagues published a festschrift, Artful Thunder: Versions of the Romantic Tradition in American Literature in Honor of Howard P. Vincent [2] In it, Harvard University professor Henry A. Murray wrote that "without your plenitude of heart and intellect, sparkling, bubbling, and overflowing generously and delectably for more than three decades, the Melvillians of our land would be less plentiful than they patently are today, less zealous, less knowledgeable, and less prolific.
[5] Following World War II, Vincent was asked by Hendricks House, an independent publisher, to become general editor of The Complete Works of Herman Melville, whose volumes were to have substantial introductions and extensive annotations.
"[8] Henry Murray said Vincent's book was not "a mausoleum of academic diligence," but a "banquet for gourmets as well as gourmands, a veritable cornucopia of Melville lore," in short, a "well-written, firmly-founded, and henceforth indispensable addition to our knowledge of great literature in the making."
Vincent's The Tailoring of White Jacket, says reviewer William Braswell, reexamines the sources already discovered, adds findings of his own, and goes on to analyze the book at length, showing how Melville transformed what he appropriated.
Vincent's writing reflected his "knowledge of letters, money accounts, contemporary commentaries, and a firm grasp of the French political history of the nineteenth century.