Many discussions were carried on as to the genuineness of the author's name and the reality of the events portrayed, but English and American critics alike recognised the book's importance as a contribution to literature.
Melville, in a letter to Hawthorne, speaks of himself as having no development at all until his twenty-fifth year, the time of his return from the Pacific; but surely the process of development must have been well advanced to permit of so virile and artistic a creation as 'Typee.' While the narrative does not always run smoothly, yet the style for the most part is graceful and alluring, so that we pass from one scene of Pacific enchantment to another quite oblivious of the vast amount of descriptive detail which is being poured out upon us.

It is the varying fortune of the hero which engrosses our attention.

We follow his adventures with breathless interest, or luxuriate with him in the leafy bowers of the 'Happy Valley,' surrounded by joyous children of nature.
When all is ended, we then for the first time realise that we know these people and their ways as if we too had dwelt among them.
I do not believe that 'Typee' will ever lose its position as a classic of American Literature.

The pioneer in South Sea romance--for the mechanical descriptions of earlier voyagers are not worthy of comparison--this book has as yet met with no superior, even in French literature; nor has it met with a rival in any other language than the French.

The character of 'Fayaway,' and, no less, William S.Mayo's 'Kaloolah,' the enchanting dreams of many a youthful heart, will retain their charm; and this in spite of endless variations by modern explorers in the same domain.