Moby-Dick or, The Whale (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

A century and a half after its publication, "Moby-Dick" still stands as a literary classic. A novel of adventure the story of a madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous as the sea, it is also an important social commentary populated with several of the most unforgettable characters in literature. This edition features French flaps and deluxe packaging.

Herman Melville was Born in New York, the son of a merchant, and was largely self-educated. He started writing after having first sailed to Liverpool in 1839, where he joined the whaler Acushnet bound for the Pacific. Deserting the ship the following year in the Marquesas, he made his way to Tahiti and Honolulu, returning as an ordinary seaman to Boston, where he was discharged in October 1844. Books based on these adventures, including Moby-Dick, won him immediate success. This literary attention soon faded, however, as his works' complexity increasingly alienated readers. Melville died virtually forgotten in 1891. and it was not until the 1920s that he received recognition as a key figure in American literature Nathaniel Philbrick, A Leading authority on the history of Nantucket, is director of the Egan Institute of Maritime Studies and a research fellow at the Nantucket Historical Association