Overview

A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick ""Moby-Dick is a book you come back to, again and again, to find new treasures and delights, a storehouse of language, incident and strange wisdom."" — The Guardian In celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States, HarperCollins is proud to present this library of American classics drawn from our storied catalog. Moby Dick is the extraordinary story of Captain Ahab's all-consuming hunt for the leviathan Moby Dick, an epic tale of adventure, free will, and man vs. nature, beginning with one of the most memorable opening lines in literary history: ""Call me Ishmael."" Thus begins a famous journey—the voyage of the whaling ship Pequod and its embattled, monomaniacal Captain Ahab. Ishmael quickly learns that the Pequod’s captain sails for revenge against the elusive Moby Dick, a sperm whale with a snow-white hump and mottled skin that destroyed Ahab’s former vessel and left him crippled. As the Pequod sails deeper through the nights and into the sea, the divisions between man and nature begin to blur—so do the lines between good and evil, as the fates of the ship’s crewmen become increasingly unclear.... Melville’s classic tale of obsession and the sea, one of the most important and enduring masterworks of nineteenth-century literature is a riveting drama, exploring rage, hope, destiny, and the deepest questions of moral truth.

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9780063484153

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Reviews

""Intended to illustrate the mystery of human life. . . . the genius of the author for moral analysis is scarcely surpassed by his wizard power of description."" -- -- Harper's Magazine ""The supreme American novel, the source and the inspiration of everything that follows in the American literary canon. . . . A book you come back to, again and again, to find new treasures and delights, a storehouse of language, incident and strange wisdom."" -- The Guardian

""Intended to illustrate the mystery of human life. . . . the genius of the author for moral analysis is scarcely surpassed by his wizard power of description."" - -- Harper's Magazine ""The supreme American novel, the source and the inspiration of everything that follows in the American literary canon. . . . A book you come back to, again and again, to find new treasures and delights, a storehouse of language, incident and strange wisdom."" - The Guardian

Author Information

Herman Melville (1819-1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet who received wide acclaim for his earliest novels, such as Typee and Redburn, but fell into relative obscurity by the end of his life. Today, Melville is hailed as one of the definitive masters of world literature for novels including Moby Dick and Billy Budd, as well as for enduringly popular short stories such as Bartleby, the Scrivener and The Bell-Tower.

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