Moby-Dick, Or The Whale: Volume 6, Scholarly Edition

Front Cover
Northwestern University Press, 1988 - Fiction - 1043 pages
In Moby Dick Melville set out to write a "mighty book" on "a mighty theme." The editors of this critical text affirm that he succeeded. Nevertheless, their prolonged examination of the novel reveals textual flaws and anomalies that help to explain Melville's fears that his great work was in some ways a hash or a botch. A lengthy historical note also gives a fresh account of Melville's earlier literary career and his working conditions as he wrote; it also analyzes the book's contemporary reception and outlines how it finally achieved fame. Other sections review theories of the book's genesis, detail the circumstances of its publication, and present documents closely relating to the story.

This scholarly edition is based on collations of both editions published during Melville's lifetime, it adopts 185 revisions and corrections from the English edition and incorporates 237 emendations by the series editors. This is an Approved Text of the Center for Editions of American Authors (Modern Language Association of America).

From inside the book

Contents

Chapter
3
Chapter
9
Chapter
15
The Ramadan
19
Chapter
25
Chapter
31
Chapter
37
Chapter
43
Chapter 74
329
Chapter 76
336
Chapter 79
345
The Pequod meets the Virgin
351
The Honor and Glory of Whaling
361
Pitchpoling
367
The Dying Whale
496
The Chase
516

Chapter
49
Chapter
54
Chapter
60
The Ship
68
Chapter
86
Chapter
93
Chapter
99
Chapter
105
Chapter
114
Chapter
122
Chapter
128
Ahabs Boat and CrewFedallah
229
Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales
265
The Whale as a Dish
298
Chapter 68
305
EDITORIAL APPENDIX
575
34
775
41
795
49
803
55
878
58
891
List of Emendations
907
Report of LineEnd Hyphenation
921
63
922
List of Substantive Variants
929
68
934
RELATED DOCUMENTS
955
Melvilles Acushnet Crew Memorandum
997
Copyright

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About the author (1988)

HERMAN MELVILLE (1819–1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick. His first three books gained much contemporary attention (the first, Typee, becoming a bestseller), and after a fast-blooming literary success in the late 1840s, his popularity declined precipitously in the mid-1850s and never recovered during his lifetime. When he died in 1891, he was almost completely forgotten. It was not until the "Melville Revival" in the early 20th century that his work won recognition, especially Moby-Dick, which was hailed as one of the literary masterpieces of both American and world literature. He was the first writer to have his works collected and published by the Library of America.