Moby Dick

A masterpiece of storytelling, this epic saga pits Ahab, a brooding and
fantastical sea captain, against the great white whale that crippled him. In
telling the tale of Ahab's passion for revenge and the fateful voyage that
ensued, Melville produced far more than the narrative of a hair-raising
journey; Moby-Dick is a tale for the ages that sounds the deepest depths of
the human soul. Interspersed with graphic sketches of life aboard a whaling
vessel, and a wealth of information on whales and 19th-century whaling,
Melville's greatest work presents an imaginative and thrilling picture of life
at sea, as well as a portrait of heroic determination. The author's keen
powers of observation and firsthand knowledge of shipboard life (he served
aboard a whaler himself) were key ingredients in crafting a maritime story
that dramatically examines the conflict between man and nature. “A valuable
addition to the literature of the day,” said American journalist Horace
Greeley on the publication of Moby-Dick in 1851 — a classic piece of
understatement about a literary classic now considered by many as “the great
American novel.” Read and pondered by generations, the novel remains an
unsurpassed account of the ultimate human struggle against the indifference of
nature and the awful power of fate.