About This Book

"Call me Ishmael," it begins. This magnificent story of mad Captain Ahab's search for the white whale has been called the greatest novel ever created by an American writer.

The story of Moby Dick is presented in three separate volumes of approximately equal length. This is the first volume. Download all three volumes to own this great classic masterpiece!

About Herman Melville

(1819-1891) Melville was a schoolteacher and then a seaman on a whaling ship before he became a writer, and his early novels describe his sea-going experiences in the far parts of the earth. "Typee," describes his stay among cannibals in the Marquesqas Islands; "Omoo," a humorous novel and social commentary about his wanderings in Tahiti with "Doctor" Long Ghost, includes a brief mutiny at sea. His masterpiece, "Moby Dick," uses the life of a whaling ship as a backdrop for all its action.

After a brief success with his earlier books, "Moby Dick," and his later books were less well received. Although Melville continued to write, and he became a part of the influential literary circle that included Nathaniel Hawthorne, he was never truly famous or rewarded in his own time. In 1866, he became a district inspector of customs, a post he held until 1885, when a small inheritance made him financial secure. His superb short novel, "Billy Budd," was not published until after his death.

In many ways Melville's life was a tragic one. Unappreciated, depressed by the death of his two sons, in narrow financial straits, his writings clearly show the dark vein that he sees running through human life — his novels concern themselves with injustice, human isolation, pride and individual courage, the possibility of redemption, and a noble reconciliation to defeat.