Although this was on my bookshelf, I don't recall ever reading it before. It is Melville's first book, and was the most popular during his lifetime (to his dismay). It is supposedly a true account of the author's captivity for about a month by the Typee natives on one of the Marquesas Islands, although there is some indication that he took parts of his material from accounts of other early mariners.
As an adventure story in an exotic locale, this account was popular particularly with a younger audience. I wonder what they made of the thinly veiled sexual content. I imagine they were titillated. I found Melville's criticisms of the "civilizing" efforts of Christian missionaries to be particularly interesting. In a scenario that has been repeated many times before and since, the efforts of governments and missionaries to turn native populations into mirrors of their own ideas and customs resulted in the degradation of the supposed beneficiaries. According to Melville, the Typee were happier and more harmonious than those in more "civilized" situations, even though they happened to be cannibals on occasion.
Though this account is well written and displays Melville's budding talent, it in no way prepares the reader for his great masterpiece, Moby Dick, or for his last book, Billy Budd. I believe it to be beneficial reading for admirers of Melville, but as general reading to be of little interest for most people.
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