Moby-Dick is the story of Captain Ahab's quest to avenge the whale that‘reaped’his leg.The quest is an obsession and the novel is a diabolical study of how a man becomes a fanatic.

But it is also a hymn to democracy.Bent as the crew is on Ahab's appalling crusade,it is equally the image of a co-operative community at work: all hands dependent on all hands,each individual responsible for the security of each.

With an Introduction and Notes by David Herd.Lecturer in English and American Literature at the University of Kent at Canterbury and co-editor of poetry Review.

Moby-Dick is the story of Captain Ahab's quest to avenge the whale that‘reaped’his leg.The quest is an obsession and the novel is a diabolical study of how a man becomes a fanatic.

But it is also a hymn to democracy.Bent as the crew is on Ahab's appalling crusade,it is equally the image of a co-operative community at work: all hands dependent on all hands,each individual responsible for the security of each.

Among the crew is Ishmael,the novel's narrator,ordinary sailor,and extraordinary reader.Digressive,allusive,vulgar,transcendent,the story Ishmael tells is above all an education: in the practice of whaling,in the art of writing.Exapading to equal his 'mighty theme'-not only the whale but all things sublime-Melville breathes in the world's great literature.Moby-Dick is the gresatest novel ever written by an American.

Etymology

Extracts

1 Loomings

2 The Carpet-Bag

3 The Spouter-Inn

4 The Counterpane

5 Breakfast

6 The Cbapel

7 The Street

8 The Pulpit

9 The Sermon

10 A Bosom Friend

11 Nightgown

12 Biographical

13 Wheelbarrow

14 Nantucket

15 Chowder

16 The Sbip

17 The Ramadan

18 His Mark

19 The Prophet

20 All Astir

21 Going Aboard

22 Merry Cbristmas

23 The Lee Shore

24 The Advocate

25 Postscript

26 Knigbts and Squires

27 Knigbts and Squires

28 Abab

29 Enter Ahab;To Him,Stubb

30 The Pipe

31 Queen Mab

32 Cetology

33 The Specksynder

34 The Cabin-Table

35 The Mast-Head

36 The Quarter-Deck

37 Sunset

38 Dusk

39 First Night-Watch

40 Midnight,Forecastle

41 Moby Dick

42 The Cbart

43 Hark!

44 The Cbart

45 The Affidavit

46 Surmises

47 The Mat-Maker

48 The First Lowering

49 The Hyena

50 Ahab's Boat and Crew.Fedallab

51 The Spirit-Spout

52 The Albatross

53 The Gam

54 The Town-Ho'sStory

55 Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales

56 Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales,and the True Pictures of Whaling Scenes

……

Epilogue