Moby Dick (Canon Classics Worldview Edition)

by Herman Melville, Toby Sumpter (Introduction)

Overview

"Extraordinary. Who would have looked for philosophy in whales, or for poetry in blubber?" ~ London John Bull, 1851

"Intriguing, haunting, suggestive, ambiguous-the narrator does not say that his name is Ishmael. He summons the reader to call him by that name. And in so doing, the narrator invites the reader not merely into a story but an epic, a tale that encompasses life, death, the universe, God, angels, demons, and man caught in the eye of that cosmic hurricane. If you consent to call him Ishmael, you consent to this voyage." -From Toby Sumpter's Introduction

Ishmael has always been a wanderer, but as soon as he meets the mysterious harpooner Queequeg, he is drawn aboard the Pequod and under the sway of the one-legged Captain Ahab. Ahab killed a whale and took its jawbone as his new leg-but the jaw wasn't from the monstrous white whale that crippled him. Some of the Pequod's whaling crew are there for the money, some for adventure, and some because they don't know any other life, but as the voyage progresses Ishmael realizes that Captain Ahab is using them all to find and butcher Moby Dick.

This wide-ranging Canon Classic is part adventure story, part nature documentary, and part discourse on the nature of Man and his enmity with God. The Canon Classics series presents the most definitive works of Western literature in a colorful, well-crafted, and affordable way. Unlike many other thrift editions, our classics are printed on thicker text stock and feature individualized designs that prioritize readability by means of proper margins, leading, characters per line, font, trim size, etc. Each book's materials and layout combine to make the classics a simple and striking addition to classrooms and homes, ideal for introducing the best of literary culture and human experience to the next generation.

This Worldview Edition features an introduction divided into sections on The World Around, About the Author, What Other Notables Said, Setting, Characters, & Plot Summary, Worldview Analysis, and 21 Discussion Questions & Answers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781944503000
Publisher:	Canon Press
Publication date:	11/01/2018
Series:	Canon Classics
Edition description:	Worldview ed.
Pages:	722
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.44(d)
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

Herman Melville was born in August 1, 1819, in New York City, the son of a merchant. Only twelve when his father died bankrupt, young Herman tried work as a bank clerk, as a cabin-boy on a trip to Liverpool, and as an elementary schoolteacher, before shipping in January 1841 on the whaler Acushnet, bound for the Pacific. Deserting ship the following year in the Marquesas, he made his way to Tahiti and Honolulu, returning as ordinary seaman on the frigate United States to Boston, where he was discharged in October 1844. Books based on these adventures won him immediate success. By 1850 he was married, had acquired a farm near Pittsfield, Massachussetts (where he was the impetuous friend and neighbor of Nathaniel Hawthorne), and was hard at work on his masterpiece Moby-Dick.

Literary success soon faded; his complexity increasingly alienated readers. After a visit to the Holy Land in January 1857, he turned from writing prose fiction to poetry. In 1863, during the Civil War, he moved back to New York City, where from 1866-1885 he was a deputy inspector in the Custom House, and where, in 1891, he died. A draft of a final prose work, Billy Budd, Sailor, was left unfinished and uncollated, packed tidily away by his widow, where it remained until its rediscovery and publication in 1924.

Date of Birth:

August 1, 1819

Date of Death:

September 28, 1891

Place of Birth:

New York, New York

Place of Death:

New York, New York

Education:

Attended the Albany Academy in Albany, New York, until age 15