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It reveals the astounding range, subtlety, artistry, and depth of thought of a true literary colossus, Herman Melville.
Published in hundreds of editions and translated into virtually every modern language, it has not been out of print since 1851.
● Contains extended historical context and a critical essay: Herman Melville: Living Life in Reverse. A Cultural and Historical Perspective of the author’s life, by Emily Whitson Barzumi
Moby Dick is one of Herman Melville’s rare and genuine masterpieces; an enchanting work of artistry deserving of the label in a thousand different ways. It can be found on countless lists of the finest literary works of all time, and is one of his major achievements.
“Drink Ye Harpooners! Death to Moby Dick!”
With that fateful cry, Captain Ahab drags his crew to fulfill his insane obsession: the destruction of the great White Whale known as Moby Dick.
To Captain Ahab, the creature that took his leg is not just a whale; it is the embodiment of pure evil.
Brimming with powerful imagery and symbolism, its intensity sustained by roguish irony and moments of exquisite beauty, Melville's masterpiece is both a great American epic and one of the most profoundly imaginative creations in literary history. It has thrilled readers for over one hundred years.
“Moby Dick is quite simply the quintessential sea-faring tale for readers of all ages, in a wonderful new 21st century digital edition.”
—Matt Travers
“Certainly it is hard to find a more wonderful book than Moby Dick, and it ought to be read by this generation, amid whose feeble mental food, furnished by the small realists and fantasts of the day, it would appear as Hercules among the pygmies, or as Moby Dick himself among a school of minnows.”
—SPRINGFIELD MASSACHUSETTS REPUBLICAN
Herman Melville (1819–1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, poet, sailor, and customs inspector. The author of numerous classic novels, essays, and short stories, he is perhaps best known for Moby Dick, Typee, The Confidence Man, Redburn, Clarel, Bartleby, the Scrivener, and Billy Budd. He is considered a literary colossus, and a central figure in the development of the modern novel.
PHILIP DOSSICK is the New York Times critically acclaimed writer and director of the motion picture The P.O.W. He has written for television, including the outstanding drama, Transplant, produced by David Susskind for CBS.
His most recent books include Aztecs: Epoch Of Social Revolution, Sex And Dreams, Mark Twain In Seattle, The Naked Citizen: Notes On Privacy In The Twenty-First Century, Raymond Chowder And Bob Skloot Must Die, The Deposition, Vincent Van Gogh: Madness And Magic, Abraham Lincoln: 5 Speeches that Changed America, Martin Luther King: 5 Speeches that Changed America, and Nelson Mandela: 5 Speeches that Changed South Africa.
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I really hate it when I can't connect with some of the greatest works of art. Moby Dick is sadly one of these!I really tried to enjoy it, but couldn't! It's one of the very few classics which bore me to death. In my opinion, there's very little development when it comes to the characters and the story-line itself. I expected a lot from the author, especially that the book is thick. I told myself here's a story that's going to keep me entertained for a while, but instead I only found an annoyingly massive amount of fishery technicalities. A flat bulk of information to fill the chapters so that the real story can be rewritten in no more than a quarter of the actual number of pages. What bugs me up about this is the uselessness of such details in connection with the direction in which the story moves. The reader could perfectly do without most of that massive amount of waling fishery details! Besides, the characters are mostly flat. There's neither will nor power of will directing their steps and guiding their actions. Take the narrator as an instance. He's a passive observer of everything; merely a man relating his inexistence in the tale. Ahab is another in spite of all his depicted mightiness which remains but empty words. What is he if not simply a stubborn, half-mad, old captain directing a set of dummies who are so flat and two dimensional that I can't even attempt to put them to scrutiny. One thing I know for sure, I am never going to read that book again as I am already giving it away to any student in need of a free copy! And apart from the occasional beauty of its prose and the images which come to the forth every now and then, I regret spending so much time reading it.