Herman Melville

A story of whaling, Captain Ahab, consumed by an insane rage, has but one purpose in life--revenge on the great white whale who maimed and disfigured him.

"What has cast such a shadow upon you?" "The negro". With its intense mix of mystery, adventure, and a surprise ending, Benito Cereno at first seems merely a provocative example from the genre Herman Melville created with his early best-selling novels of the sea. However, most Melville scholars consider it his most sophisticated work, and many, such as novelist Ralph Ellison, have hailed it as the most piercing look at slavery in all of American literature....

On November 20, 1820, in the Southeast Pacific, an enormous 85-foot sperm whale rammed and sank Nantucket whale ship The Essex and set its crew adrift more than a thousand miles from land. Only eight members of the young crew survived starvation, thirst and exposure, rescued at last by British whale ships three months later. Elderly Tom Nickerson recalls how, in 1819, he went to sea as cabin boy on The Essex, leaving Nantucket. Its recently promoted...

"The icy waters of the northern seas hide a creature that is already a legend among all seafarers. The fearsome white leviathan, the chimera of all whalers, Moby Dick. The young Ishmael, along with his faithful friend Queequeg, will board the Pequod, to satisfy their craving for adventure. But soon, he will discover that his work goes beyond whaling, and that the whole crew is at the mercy of the mysterious Captain Ahab's thirst for revenge." -- from...