Herman Melville

Herman Melville's classic seafaring adventure has been a favourite of readers for generations. “Call me Ishmael” is the iconic opening line of Herman Melville’s classic American novel Moby-Dick. Ishmael is a seaman aboard the whaling vessel Pequod, under the vengeful Captain Ahab. Maniacally seeking retribution from the great white sperm whale called Moby-Dick—the whale responsible for the captain’s missing leg—Ahab...

Captain Ahab is an eerily compelling madman who focuses his distilled hatred and suffering (and that of generations before him) into the pursuit of a creature as vast, dangerous, and unknowable as the sea itself. More than just a novel of adventure, this is a haunting social commentary populated with some of the most enduring characters in literature. Written with...

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville has been lauded by literary giants: 'I love Melville' - Donna Tartt 'The ultimate fish story' - Bob Dylan When Ishmael sets sail on the whaling ship Pequod one cold Christmas Day, he has no idea of the horrors awaiting him out on the vast and merciless ocean. The ship's strange captain, Ahab, is in the...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. “Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee…” Few literary masterpieces cast quite as awesome a shadow as Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Captain...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. ‘Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee…’ Few literary masterpieces cast quite as awesome a shadow as Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Captain...

Launching a major new paperback series - Penguin English Library. The Penguin English Library Edition of Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. 'The frail gunwales bent in, collapsed, and snapped, as both jaws, like an enormous shears, sliding further aft, bit the craft completely in twain...' Moby-Dick is one of the most expansive feats of imagination in the whole of literature -...

Journey to the heart of the sea with this larger-than-life classic. Regarded as the Great American Novel, Moby Dick is the ultimate tale of seeking vengeance. Narrated by the crew member Ishmael, this epic whaling adventure follows the crew of the Pequod, as its captain, Ahab, descends deeper and deeper into madness on his quest to find and kill the...

Each text has been carefully edited and annotated for student readers. As his writing reflects, Melville was extraordinarily well read. Contexts collects important sources for each novel, including writings by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Amasa Delano, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Criticism includes twenty-eight essays about the novels sure to promote classroom discussion. Contributors include Leo Marx, Elizabeth Hardwick, Frederick Busch, Robert Lowell,...

This trade edition of Moby-Dick is a reduced version of the Arion Press Moby-Dick, which was published in 1979 in a limited edition of 250 copies and has been hailed as a modern masterpiece of bookmaking. It was hand set under the supervision of one of America's finest book designers and printers. The initial letters that begin each chapter were...

The FLAME TREE COLLECTABLE CLASSICS are chosen to create a delightful and timeless home library. Each stunning edition features deluxe cover treatments, ribbon markers, luxury endpapers, and gilded edges. The unabridged text is accompanied by a Glossary of Victorian and Literary terms produced for the modern reader. American writer Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick in 1851, but it took decades...

Few literary masterpieces cast quite as awesome a shadow as Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Captain Ahab’s quest for the white whale is a timeless epic – a thrilling tale of vengeance and obsession, and a searing parable about humanity lost in a universe of moral ambiguity. Inspired by true events, Moby Dick is a work of astonishing psychological depth. It...

When the young Ishmael joins Captain Ahab’s whaling ship, he unsuspectingly embarks on a mission driven by Ahab's obsessive desire for revenge against Moby Dick, a white whale that has already claimed countless human victims and destroyed many fleets. With some sinister crew members among them and the hazardous conditions of the sea to contend with, the expedition becomes increasingly...

An illustrated edition of Billy Budd featuring woodcuts by celebrated artist Barry Moser. This edition of Billy Budd, Sailor presents Herman Melville's iconic tale of the high seas alongside illustrations by renowned artist, publisher, and printmaker Barry Moser. Throughout his fifty-year career, Moser has illustrated more than three hundred books ranging from novels to children's stories to the Bible. Through...

Herman Melville's profound and timeless inquiry into one man's obsession, in a gorgeous new clothbound edition. Part of Penguin's beautiful hardcover Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. In part, Moby-Dick is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an...

"Ambiguities indeed! One long brain-muddling, soul-bewildering ambiguity (to borrow Mr. Melville's style), like Melchisedeck, without beginning or end—a labyrinth without a clue—an Irish bog without so much as a Jack o' the'lantern to guide the wanderer's footsteps—the dream of a distempered stomach, disordered by a hasty supper on half-cooked pork chops." So judged the New York Herald when Pierre was...

On board the whaling ship Pequod a crew of wise men and fools, renegades and seeming phantoms is hurled through treacherous seas by crazed Captain Ahab, a man hell-bent on hunting down the mythic White Whale. Melville transforms the little world of the whale ship into a crucible where mankind's fears, faith and frailties are pitted against a relentless fate....

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...

This deluxe edition presents Herman Melville's classic nautical adventure novel, Moby Dick, in a striking hardback edition with gold cover accents and printed page edges. Described by D. H. Lawrence as "the greatest book of the sea ever written" and now heralded as a classic of American literature, Moby Dick tells the story of sailor Ishmael who signs up for...

Enjoy a brief encounter with Herman Melville, the great, epic storyteller of Modern America, and his enduring tale of a man who takes refusing to conform to its extreme limits. Herman Melville's enduringly comic and affecting tale of a man who takes quiet quitting to its extreme. A new clerk in a Wall Street lawyer's office causes dismay and confusion...

Narrated by the sailor Ishmael, Moby-Dick is the tale of the maniacal quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, as he seeks vengeance against Moby-Dick, the giant white sperm whale that bit off his leg on the ship's previous voyage. More than an epic sea-story, the detailed and realistic descriptions of whale hunting and the process of extracting...

Narrated by the sailor Ishmael, Moby-Dick is the tale of the maniacal quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, as he seeks vengeance against Moby-Dick, the giant white sperm whale that bit off his leg on the ship's previous voyage. More than an epic sea-story, the detailed and realistic descriptions of whale hunting and the process of extracting...

"It will be a strange sort of a book, tho', I fear; blubber is blubber you know; tho' you may get oil out of it, the poetry runs as hard as sap from a frozen maple tree;—& to cook the thing up, one must needs throw in a little fancy.... Yet I mean to give the truth of the thing,...

This Norton Critical Edition includes: Moby-Dick, Melville's classic novel of whaling and revenge, based on Hershel Parker's revision of the 1967 text edited by Harrison Hayford and Hershel Parker. Twenty-six illustrations, including maps, contemporary engravings, and diagrams of whaleboat rigging. Background and source materials centering on whaling and whalecraft, Melville's international reception, the inspirations for Moby-Dick, and Melville's related correspondence....

Journey to the heart of the sea with this larger-than-life classic. Regarded as the Great American Novel, Moby Dick is the ultimate tale of seeking vengeance. Narrated by the crew member Ishmael, this epic whaling adventure follows the crew of the Pequod, as its captain, Ahab, descends deeper and deeper into madness on his quest to find and kill the...

A lawyer hires a new copyist, only to be met with stubborn, confounding resistance. A cynical lightning rod salesman plies his trade by exploiting fears in stormy weather. After boarding a beleaguered Spanish slave ship, an American trader's cheerful outlook is repeatedly shadowed by paralyzing unease.