Moby Dick, or The Whale - by Herman Melville (Full Version)

by Herman Melville

Overview

Moby-Dick is an 1851 novel by Herman Melville. The story tells the adventures of the wandering sailor Ishmael and his voyage on the whaling ship Pequod, commanded by Captain Ahab. Ishmael soon learns that Ahab seeks one specific whale, Moby-Dick, a white whale of tremendous size and ferocity. Comparatively few whaling ships know of Moby-Dick, and fewer yet have encountered him. In a previous encounter, the whale destroyed Ahab's boat and bit off his leg. Ahab intends to exact revenge.

This is the original full text of Moby Dick, a timeless classic.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940012181398
Publisher:	Holloway Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/06/2011
Series:	Literary Classics Collection , #8
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	750 KB

About the Author

Herman Melville, who died almost forgotten although he had once been a popular author and had left behind ten notable books of prose fiction and four of verse, has gathered increasing fame, especially for his metaphysical whaling novel, Moby-Dick. Like much of his writing, Moby-Dick originates in his experiences as a common sailor and in the complex reactions of his lively mind to ageless spiritual questions and to the ebullient society of his time. One of the few American books recognized as a world classic, it has overshadowed the considerable achievement of his other work, which is diverse and experimental and, though sometimes flawed, often shows remarkable control. His narratives of adventure in the South Seas are small masterworks of the genre. His short tales, "Bartleby" and "Benito Cereno," are carefully crafted and profoundly sensitive critiques of his own age that emerge as fables applicable to a later day. His paired sketch, "The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids," combines cunning social criticism and psychological insight. He wrote perhaps a dozen poems of distinction, most of them brief and the outgrowth of his travels or his musings on the events of the Civil War. It can be argued that his last published prose work, The Confidence-Man, is the first modern American novel. Without doubt, it is an uncanny tour de force.

Date of Birth:

August 1, 1819

Date of Death:

September 28, 1891

Place of Birth:

New York, New York

Place of Death:

New York, New York

Education:

Attended the Albany Academy in Albany, New York, until age 15