Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Wordsworth Classics covers a huge list of beloved works of literature in English and translations. This growing series is rigorously updated, with scholarly introductions and notes added to new titles.
Synopsis
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. Expanding 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 greatest novel ever written by an American.
Table of Contents
Loomings -- Carpet-bag -- Spouter Inn -- Counterpane -- Breakfast -- Street -- Chapel -- Pulpit -- Sermon -- Bosom friend -- Nightgown -- Biographical -- Wheelbarrow -- Nantucket -- Chowder -- Ship -- Ramadan -- His mark -- Prophet -- All astir -- Going abroad -- Merry Christmas -- Lee shore -- Advocate -- Postscript -- Knights and squires -- Ahab -- Enter Ahab; to him, Stubb -- Pipe -- Queen Mab -- Cetology -- Specksynder -- Cabin-table -- Mast-head -- Quarter-deck -- Sunset -- Dusk -- First night-watch -- Midnight, forecastle -- Moby Dick -- Whiteness of the whale -- Hark! -- Chart -- Affidavit -- Surmises -- Mat-maker -- First lowering -- Hyena -- Ahab's boat and crew. Fedallah -- Spirit-spout -- Albatross -- Gam -- Town-ho's story -- Of the monstrous pictures of whales -- Of the less erroneous pictures of whales, and the true pictures of whaling scenes -- Of whales in paint; in teeth,; in wood; in sheet-iron; in stone; in mountains; in stars -- Brit -- Squid -- Line -- Stubb kills a whale -- Dart -- Crotch -- Stubb's supper -- Whale as a dish -- Shark massacre -- Cutting in -- Blanket -- Funeral -- Sphynx -- Jeroboam's story -- Monkey-rope -- Stubb and Flask kill a right whale' and then have a talk over him -- Sperm whales' head-contrasted view -- Right whale's head-contrasted view -- Battering-ram -- Great Heidelburgh tun -- Cistern and buckets -- Praire -- Nut -- Pequod meets the virgin -- Honor and glory of whaling -- Jonah historically regarded -- Fountain -- Tail -- Grand armada -- Schools and schoolmaster -- Fast-fish and loose-fish - Heads or tails -- Pequod meets the Rose-bud -- Ambergris -- Castaway -- Squeeze of the hand -- Cassock -- Try-works -- Lamp -- Stowing down and clearing up -- Doubloon -- Leg and arm -- Decanter -- Bower in the Arsacides -- Measurement of the whale's skeleton - Fossil whale -- Does the whale's magnitude diminish? Will he perish? -- Ahab's leg -- Carpenter -- Ahab and the carpenter -- Ahab and Starbuck in the cabin -- Queequeg in his coffin -- Pacific -- Blacksmith -- Forge -- Gilder -- Pequod meets the bachelor -- Dying whale -- Whale watch -- Quadrant -- Candles -- Deck-towards the end of the first night watch -- Midnight-the forecastle bulwarks -- Midnight aloft-thunder and lightning -- Musket -- Needle -- Log and line -- Life-buoy -- Deck -- Pequod meets the Rachel -- Cabin -- Hat -- Pequod meets the Delight -- Symphony -- Chase-first day -- Chase-second day -- Chase-third day -- Epilogue.