According to Petri Liukkonen, Melville lost fame and readership, was unable to support his family, and had to depend on his father-in-law's wealth. “In 1855 Melville had a nervous breakdown: he began to believe that he would not achieve fame with his writing.” (Petri Liukkonen, 4) Melville was lost and did not know how to recover from what had happened to him; so I said before he ran away and left on a trip to Europe. Melville gave up writing as it brought him no income; and so he found work as a customs inspector, which guaranteed him a regular income that he could count on unlike his own