{"product_id":"moby-dick-or-the-whale-9780142437247","title":"Moby-Dick: Or, the Whale","description":"\u003cb\u003eHerman Melville's masterpiece of obsession and the untamed sea, one of the greatest works of imagination in literary history--featuring an introduction by Andrew Delbanco and notes by Tom Quirk. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eThis edition features the Northwestern-Newberry edition of Melville's text, approved by the Center for Scholarly Editions and the Center for Editions of American Authors of the MLA.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eNominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's \u003ci\u003eThe Great American Read\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eMoby-Dick\u003c\/i\u003e still stands as an indisputable literary classic. It is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. But more than just a novel of adventure, more than an encyclopedia of whaling lore and legend, \u003ci\u003eMoby-Dick\u003c\/i\u003e is a haunting, mesmerizing, and important social commentary populated with several of the most unforgettable and enduring characters in literature. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWritten with wonderfully redemptive humor, \u003ci\u003eMoby-Dick\u003c\/i\u003e is a profound and timeless inquiry into character, faith, and the nature of perception. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ePenguin Classics is the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world, representing a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eHerman Melville\u003c\/b\u003e was born in August 1, 1819, in New York City, the son of a merchant. Only twelve when his father died bankrupt, young Herman tried work as a bank clerk, as a cabin-boy on a trip to Liverpool, and as an elementary schoolteacher, before shipping in January 1841 on the whaler Acushnet, bound for the Pacific. Deserting ship the following year in the Marquesas, he made his way to Tahiti and Honolulu, returning as ordinary seaman on the frigate United States to Boston, where he was discharged in October 1844. Books based on these adventures won him immediate success. By 1850 he was married, had acquired a farm near Pittsfield, Massachussetts (where he was the impetuous friend and neighbor of Nathaniel Hawthorne), and was hard at work on his masterpiece \u003cb\u003eMoby-Dick.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLiterary success soon faded; his complexity increasingly alienated readers. After a visit to the Holy Land in January 1857, he turned from writing prose fiction to poetry. In 1863, during the Civil War, he moved back to New York City, where from 1866-1885 he was a deputy inspector in the Custom House, and where, in 1891, he died. A draft of a final prose work, \u003cb\u003eBilly Budd, Sailor\u003c\/b\u003e, was left unfinished and uncollated, packed tidily away by his widow, where it remained until its rediscovery and publication in 1924. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eAndrew Delbanco\u003c\/b\u003e was born in 1952. Educated at Harvard, he has lectured extensively throughout the United States and abroad. He writes frequently on American culture for many national journals and papers, and has co-directed a number of seminars for high school and college teachers at the National Endowment for the Humanities Center and under the sponsorship of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Among his previous works are \u003cb\u003eThe Death of Satan\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003cb\u003eRequired Reading\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003cb\u003eA New England Anthology\u003c\/b\u003e, and \u003cb\u003eThe Puritan Ordeal\u003c\/b\u003e, which received the 1990 Lionel Trilling Award at Columbia University, where he is Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Humanities. Mr. Delbanco lives in New York City with his wife and two children. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eTom Quirk \u003c\/b\u003eis the Catherine Paine Middlebush Professor of English at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is the editor of the Penguin Classics editions of Mark Twain's \u003cb\u003eTales, Speeches, Essays, and Sketches\u003c\/b\u003e (1994) and Ambrose Bierce's \u003cb\u003eTales of Soldiers and Civilians and Other Stories\u003c\/b\u003e (2000) and co-editor of \u003cb\u003eThe Portable American Realism Reader\u003c\/b\u003e (1997). His other books include \u003cb\u003eComing to Grips with Huckleberry Finn\u003c\/b\u003e (1993), \u003cb\u003eMark Twain: A Study of the Short Fiction\u003c\/b\u003e (1997) and \u003cb\u003eNothing Abstract: Investigations in the American Literary Imagination\u003c\/b\u003e (2001).\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Penguin Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50569462972690,"sku":"9780142437247","price":11.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_a8fadb35-474a-4436-98b7-00f33e9de008.jpg?v=1748515524","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/moby-dick-or-the-whale-9780142437247","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}