Name: Moby Dick
SKU: 56595726
Price: 26.60 EUR
Availability: InStock
Author: Melville, Herman
ISBN: 9781547220939

Type

Physical Book

Author

Herman Melville

Publisher

Createspace

Language

English

Pages

258

Format

Paperback

Dimensions

28x21.6x1.4 cm

Weight

0.60 kg.

ISBN13

9781547220939

Synopsis "Moby Dick"

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is a novel by Herman Melville, in which Ishmael narrates the monomaniacal quest of Ahab, captain of the whaler Pequod, for revenge on the albino sperm whale Moby Dick, which on a previous voyage destroyed Ahab's ship and severed his leg at the knee. Although the novel was a commercial failure and out of print at the time of the author's death in 1891, its reputation grew immensely during the twentieth century. D. H. Lawrence called it "one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world," and "the greatest book of the sea ever written." Moby-Dick is considered a Great American Novel and an outstanding work of the Romantic period in America and the American Renaissance. "Call me Ishmael" is one of world literature's most famous opening sentences. The product of a year and a half of writing, the book is dedicated to Nathaniel Hawthorne, "in token of my admiration for his genius," and draws on Melville's experience at sea, on his reading in whaling literature, and on literary inspirations such as Shakespeare and the Bible. The detailed and realistic descriptions of whale hunting and of extracting whale oil, as well as life aboard ship among a culturally diverse crew, are mixed with exploration of class and social status, good and evil, and the existence of God. In addition to narrative prose, Melville uses styles and literary devices ranging from songs, poetry and catalogs to Shakespearean stage directions, soliloquies and asides. The author changed the title at the very last moment in September 1851. The work first appeared as The Whale in London in October 1851, and then under its definitive title Moby-Dick in New York in November. The whale, however, appears in both the London and New York editions as "Moby Dick," with no hyphen. The British edition of five hundred copies was not reprinted during the author's life, the American of almost three thousand was reprinted three times at approximately 250 copies, the last reprinting in 1871. These figures are exaggerated because three hundred copies were destroyed in a fire at Harper's; only 3,200 copies were actually sold during the author's life.

Herman Melville

(Author)

View Author's Page

Herman Melville (New York, August 1, 1819-New York, September 28, 1891)1 was an American writer, novelist, poet, and essayist from the American Renaissance period. Among his most famous novels are Typee (1846), based on his experiences in Polynesia, and the novel Moby Dick (1851),1 considered his masterpiece and a classic of world literature

Between 1853 and 1855, he published a series of stories in Putnam Magazine, most of which were collected in The Piazza Tales, including two of Melville's most important narratives: the story Bartleby, the Scrivener and the novella Benito Cereno. Also featured is the story The Encantadas, consisting of ten sketches about the Galapagos Islands linked by a single narrator. In 1857, The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, also known as The Confidence-Man, was the last prose fiction work he published. Seeking financial stability, he abandoned writing, accepting a position as a customs inspector

In his later years, in which he also had to endure the death of two of his brothers as well as the death of two of his sons, Clarence, from tuberculosis, and Malcolm from a possible suicide, as well as the death of another of his sons at thirty-five years old, Stanwix Melville, he dedicated himself to writing poetry. Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War, from 1866, is a poetic reflection on the Civil War and Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land, a fictional epic poem, published in 1876. The novel Billy Budd, which he left unfinished and was posthumously published in London in 1924, is considered one of the most significant works of American literature.

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