‘Moby Dick’ is a novel by Herman Melville and dedicated to Nathaniel Hawthorne. It was published in London in October 1851 as ‘
The Whale’ and a month later in New York City as ‘Moby Dick’. ‘Moby Dick’ is generally regarded as Melville’s magnum opus and one of the greatest American novels.
The novel is an epic tale of the voyage of the whaling ship the Pequod and its captain, Ahab, who relentlessly pursues the great Sperm Whale (the title character) during a journey around the world. The narrator of the novel is Ishmael, a sailor on the Pequod who undertakes the journey out of his affection for the sea.
Cast and set as part of a timeless and allegorical world, ‘Moby Dick’ is a novel rich in symbolism and metaphor. The names of the characters all have biblical resonances, and the Epilogue begins with a quotation from the Book of Job: “
and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.” The novel’s extraordinary oddness comprises an encyclopedia of whaling lore, a Biblical meditation on the value of life, and a study of humankind’s relationship with others as well as with nature. The adventures that take place in the novel are so well known that they have entered the American consciousness.
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