Biographical noteHerman Melville, though not appreciated in his own time, is now regarded as one of America's greatest novelists. Much of the material for his novels was drawn from his own experience as a seaman. He wrote his masterpiece Moby Dick in 1851and died in1891. Andrew Delbanco is Professor of English & Comparative Literature at Columbia University. Tom Quirk is Professor of English at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Main descriptionPart of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design.In Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, Captain Ahab is an eerily compelling madman who focuses his distilled hatred and suffering (and that of generations before him) into the pursuit of a creature as vast, dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. More than just a novel of adventure, this is a haunting social commentary populated with some of the most enduring characters in literature. Written with wonderfully redemptive humour, Moby Dick is a profound and timeless inquiry into character, faith and the nature of perception.
Following the commercial and critical success of Typee, Herman Melville continued his series of South Sea adventure-romances with Omoo. Named after the Polynesian term for a rover, or someone who roams from island to island, Omoo chronicles the tumultuous events aboard a South Sea whaling vessel and is based on Melville's personal experiences as a crew member on a ship sailing the Pacific. From recruiting among the natives for sailors to handling deserters and even mutiny, Melville gives a first-person account of life as a sailor during the nineteenth century filled with colourful characters and vivid descriptions of the far-flung locales of Polynesia.
Seven stories deal with a slave rebellion, an obstinate copyist, an accidental murder, a voyage to the Galapagos Islands, and a bachelors' dinner party
