Billy Budd is a novella written by Herman Melville, first published posthumously in 1924. It tells the story of Billy Budd, a SAILOR who is falsely accused of mutiny and sentenced to death. The OPERA adaptation of the novella was written by Benjamin Britten and Peter Ustinov, and the novelette version was written by E.V. Vere. The term 'TAR' is a slang term for SAILOR, which is fitting for the story of Billy Budd.