Merton M. Sealts Jr. (December 8, 1915 – June 4, 2000) was a scholar of American literature, focusing on Ralph Waldo Emerson and Herman Melville.
Sealts wrote one paper on "the intellectual affiliations of Emerson's Nature and another, out of which his dissertation grew, on Melville's major philosophical ideas.
According to Gail Coffler, one of his Ph.D. students, his own prose is free of "jargon or trendy language so that his books and essays have never become outdated nor will they be superseded.
), A Companion to Melville Studies (Greenwood Press, 1986) which book Parker reviewed in Nineteenth-Century Literature (1988), describing the essay as "one of the series of classic pieces Sealts has been publishing pell mell since his retirement, the most impressive string of articles any Melvillean has yet produced."
Calling Sealts "the undisputed authority on Melville's short prose works, and a pioneer in the movement to appreciate their artistic worth," Lea Newman praised his "impeccably documented and flawlessly written 'Historical Note'" and described his research as "an exercise in literary sleuthing of consummate skill," his involvement "both informs and validates this edition as nothing else could.
Wenke also found the endeavor "inspiring and dignified," and that the book "testifies to [Sealts's] abiding dedication to establishing a documentary basis for literary studies.
"[6] Sealts continued publishing after retirement, and in 1992 received the Jay B. Hubell award of the Modern Language Association (American Section).
One month before he died, the bedridden Sealts still participated in "a nationally broadcast radio series in a program on Melville's novella, Billy Budd, Sailor".