Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is a novel by American writer Herman Melville, published in 1851 during the period of the American Renaissance. Sailor Ishmael tells the story of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaler Pequod, for revenge on Moby Dick, the white whale which on an earlier voyage destroyed his ship and severed his leg at the knee. Ishmael describes Moby Dick as having prominent white areas around "a peculiar snow-white wrinkled forehead, and a high, pyramidical white hump," the rest of his body being of ...
Read More
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is a novel by American writer Herman Melville, published in 1851 during the period of the American Renaissance. Sailor Ishmael tells the story of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaler Pequod, for revenge on Moby Dick, the white whale which on an earlier voyage destroyed his ship and severed his leg at the knee. Ishmael describes Moby Dick as having prominent white areas around "a peculiar snow-white wrinkled forehead, and a high, pyramidical white hump," the rest of his body being of stripes and patches between white and gray.
Read Less
Very nice book, and extremely prompt shipping...thanks again!
milly
Oct 13, 2011
Hardcover in great shape, came exactly as described. This is a somewhat scarce,annotated edition. And, Moby Dick ( with or without the annotations), is THE single greatest book ever written.
joekc6nlx
Apr 24, 2008
The Great American Novel
When I studied this book in college, we discussed what Melville was describing in this story. It's not only about a young man's transformation through his experiences on the Pequod, nor is it only about Ahab's obsession with killing Moby Dick to the exclusion of all else. It's about man's struggle against Nature, the attempts by man to change, control, and eventually overcome Nature. Melville understood that man could never accomplish this, but would only end up destroying himself as Ahab destroyed himself by harpooning Moby Dick.
In my opinion, this is still the greatest American novel ever written, not only for the twin stories of Ishmael and Ahab, but also educational in how whalers lived, worked, and sometimes died.
