Moby Dick

by Melville, Herman; Tanner, Tony

• ISBN13: 9780192833853
• ISBN10: 0192833855
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-07-16
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This classic story of high adventure, manic obsession and metaphysical speculation was Melville's masterpiece. This edition includes passages from Melville's correspondence with Nathaniel Hawthorne, in which the two discuss the philosophical depths of the novel's plot and imagery.

Author Biography

Herman Melville was Born in New York, the son of a merchant, and was largely self-educated. He started writing after having first sailed to Liverpool in 1839, where he joined the whaler Acushnet bound for the Pacific. Deserting the ship the following year in the Marquesas, he made his way to Tahiti and Honolulu, returning as an ordinary seaman to Boston, where he was discharged in October 1844. Books based on these adventures, including Moby-Dick, won him immediate success. This literary attention soon faded, however, as his works' complexity increasingly alienated readers. Melville died virtually forgotten in 1891. and it was not until the 1920s that he received recognition as a key figure in American literature Nathaniel Philbrick, A Leading authority on the history of Nantucket, is director of the Egan Institute of Maritime Studies and a research fellow at the Nantucket Historical Association

Table of Contents

Introduction	vii	(22)
Note on the Text	xxix	(1)
Select Bibliography	xxx	(1)
A Chronology of Herman Melville	xxxi
MOBY DICK	1	(584)
Explanatory Notes	585	(12)
Appendix: Melville's Letters to Nathaniel Hawthorne	597