Moby-Dick

Front Cover
Collector's Library, 2004 - Fiction - 768 pages
Looking for adventure and a new life, Ishmael, the story's narrator, decides to find work on a whaling boat. On arriving at the Massachusetts harbour to begin his search, the only bed available is already half occupied by a "cannibal" named Queequeg. Although Queequeg has limited English, a friendship forms and the two men sign up for work together aboard the Pequod under the infamous Captain Ahab.

From inside the book

Contents

Etymology
15
2
38
4
62
8
77
ΙΟ
92
14
109
17
134
220
147
The Nut
475
The Pequod Meets the Virgin
478
The Honour and Glory of Whaling
492
Jonah Historically Regarded
496
Pitchpoling
499
The Fountain
502
The Tail
509
The Grand Armada
515

Going Aboard
154
Merry Christmas
158
The Lee Shore
164
The Advocate
165
Postscript
171
Knights and Squires
172
Knights and Squires
176
Ahab
182
Enter Ahab To Him Stubb
187
The Pipe
191
Queen Mab
192
Cetology
195
The Specksynder
212
The CabinTable
216
The MastHead
223
The QuarterDeck
232
Sunset
242
Dusk
244
First NightWatch
245
Midnight Forecastle
246
The Whiteness of the Whale
267
Hark
279
The Chart
280
The Affidavit
287
Surmises
299
The MatMaker
302
The Hyena
319
51
325
52
331
54
339
Of the Monstrous Pictures
366
56
372
858
380
60
387
62
399
65
413
The Blanket
421
The Jeroboams Story
430
The MonkeyRope
438
Stubb and Flask Kill a Right Whale and Then Have a Talk Over Him
444
The Sperm Whales Head Contrasted View
451
The Right Whales Head Contrasted View
456
The BatteringRam
460
The Great Heidelburgh Tun
463
Cistern and Buckets
466
The Prairie
471
Schools and Schoolmasters
531
FastFish and LooseFish
535
Heads or Tails
540
The Pequod Meets the RoseBud
544
Ambergris
553
The Castaway
556
A Squeeze of the Hand
562
The Cassock
566
The TryWorks
568
The Lamp
574
Stowing Down and Clearing Up
575
The Doubloon
578
Leg and Arm
586
ΙΟΙ The Decanter
595
A Bower in the Arsacides
601
Measurement of the Whales Skeleton
607
The Fossil Whale
610
Does the Whales Magnitude Diminish? Will He Perish?
615
Ahabs Leg
621
The Carpenter
624
Ahab and the Carpenter
628
Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin
633
IIO Queequeg in his Coffin
637
The Pacific
644
The Blacksmith
646
The Forge
649
The Gilder
653
The Pequod Meets the Bachelor
656
The Dying Whale
659
The Whale Watch
661
The Quadrant
663
The Candles
666
The Deck Towards the End of the First Night Watch
675
Midnight The Forecastle Bulwarks
676
The Needle
682
The Lifebuoy
691
The Pequod Meets the Rachel
698
The Hat
705
The Pequod Meets the Delight
711
The Chase First Day
718
The ChaseSecond Day
731
The Chase Third Day
742
Afterword
759
Further Reading
767
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2004)

Herman Melville was born in 1819 in New York City. Both his grandfathers were Revolutionary War heroes but his father, a merchant, died bankrupt in 1833. Melville left school and worked at various jobs before shipping on the whaler Achshnet in 1841. The next year he deserted, travelled the South Seas and joined the US Navy. After three years he retired, settled in Massachusetts and started to write. His first two novels, Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847), were fictionalized accounts of his travels: they remained his most popular works during his lifetime. In 1847 Melville married and wrote a series of novels he considered potboilers for money. With Moby-Dick (1851) he changed course, partly under the influence of Nathaniel Hawthorne; but the novel's extravagant intensity lost him readers. Pierre (1852) fared no better, and after publishing one more novel Melville took a job as a customs inspector in the New York City harbour and turned to writing poetry. He died there in 1891; an unfinished novel, Billy Budd, Sailor, was published in 1924.

Bibliographic information