Moby-Dick [Mass Market Paperback]

Herman Melville (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1999

Herman Melville's peerless allegorical masterpiece is the epic saga of the fanatical Captain Ahab, who swears vengeance on the mammoth white whale that has crippled him. Often considered to be the Great American Novel, Moby-Dick is at once a starkly realistic story of whaling, a romance of unusual adventure, and a searing drama of heroic courage, moral conflict, and mad obsession. It is world-renowned as the greatest sea story ever told.

Moby-Dick, widely misunderstood in its own time, has since become an indubitable classic of American literature.

Editorial Reviews

Review

D.H. Lawrence Moby-Dick commands a stillness in the soul, an awe...[it is] one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world.

About the Author

Herman Melville was born in 1819 in New York City. After his father's death he left school for a series of clerical jobs before going to sea as a young man of nineteen. At twenty-one he shipped aboard the whaler Acushnet and began a series of adventures in the South Seas that would last for three years and form the basis for his first two novels, Typee and Omoo. Although these two novels sold well and gained for Melville a measure of fame, nineteenth-century readers were puzzled by the experiments with form that he began with his third novel, Mardi, and continued brilliantly in his masterpiece, Moby-Dick. During his later years spent working as a customs inspector on the New York docks, Melville published only poems, compiled in a collection entitled Battle-Pieces, and died in 1891 with Billy Budd, Sailor, now considered a classic, still unpublished.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 640 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (March 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671028359
• ISBN-13: 978-0671028350
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 4.7 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #347,372 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #18 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Literature & Fiction > Authors, A-Z > ( M ) > Melville, Herman

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nice No Frills Edition, November 12, 2010

By 

Wood Wren "Wren" (U.S.A.) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Moby-Dick (Mass Market Paperback)

This in no way is a literary review, although I will say that this is a very finely written novel and really should be read by everyone...if of course reading is your thing...it is mine and I love this work...but hey, that is just me.
No, this is a quick review on this particular edition of this book. It is good, cheap and of surprisingly good quality. The font is quite readable and paper is pleasing.

This makes a great give and is a great way to add this work to our book shelf at very little cost...of course unless you want to by a nice used copy here on Amazon of which the choices (editions) are almost with out limit.

I purchased three copies of this particular edition as quick graduation gifts...sort of stocking stuffers, if you will and they were indeed appreciated by the kids I gave them to.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars moby dick, March 26, 2010

By 

Batty Reader "batty reader" (Washington DC) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Moby-Dick (Mass Market Paperback)

Tthe book came as promised, and in the advertised condition, but it is NOT part of the Enriched Classic Series.
It's an Airmont Classic, which only includes an intro by a PhD. It's a wicked old version, which is actually
kind of fun 1964--- to read an american classic with old and yellowed pages. I like that part.

It is complete and unabridged, but I thought I was getting a lot more "Enrichment"
when I ordered.

Sadly, it's just a copy of Moby Dick, a bit weathered... lacking the scholarly info
i thought I had ordered.

:(

5.0 out of 5 stars all-time great narrator, October 2, 2009

By 

candacekay (McMinnville, OR) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Moby-Dick (Mass Market Paperback)

Huck Finn, Holden Caulfield, Scout Finch - they're all classic American narrators. But for my money, the king of them all is Melville's Ishmael. Listening to him tell this story is like listening to a rakish old grandpa tell his half-remembered, half-made-up stories of youthful adventures, complete with rambling, yet interesting, digressions. Sometimes the details can be confusing to modern minds, but once you've fallen under Ishmael's spell, it doesn't seem to matter much; the point is listening to that voice and hearing the way he says things. Sure, at some points you might feel like saying, "Get on with the story, Grandpa!" But at the end of the story you'll be saying, "Tell me another one!" Ishmael's what I'd call a considerate narrator; for all his wandering asides about whales and what not, he always makes sure you know where you are in the narrative. After all, he only digresses during those long stretches of time when the Pequod is sailing along and not much is happening. The minute something happens, he stops rambling immediately, and then you're right there in the boat, catching a whale. I love Ishmael! To spend time in his company is well worth any effort the reading may require.