Moby-Dick or, the Whale by Herman Melville

When they enlist, they discover the new captain of the ship is a man called Ahab (named for an Israeli king who, because of his obsession with his wife, Jezebel, abandoned his people and God to worship other gods). He persuades Ishmael to join him since he needs a job.

The man's name is Queequeg, a Polynesian harpooner, who is signing on to the Pequod, a whaling ship. He must share the bed with a man who originally terrifies him, due to his dark skin, rough mien and tattoos, but they become best friends as the book progresses. Ishmael's adventure begins when he arrives in New Bedford on his way to Nantucket to find little 'room at the inn'. Strong young men would spend some time on the whaling vessels to make their fortune bringing in the valuable whale oil. He has decided to seek his fortune at sea, and therefore heads to Nantucket. With that one line, the reader knows this is an alias the narrator uses, and that he is an unwanted son, himself. The famous opening line, 'Call me Ishmael' is a reference to the illegitimate son of Abraham, expelled from the tribe to die in the desert with his Egyptian slave mother, only to be saved by God. Today, Moby-Dick is considered one of the greatest American novels.'Moby Dick' is a full of biblical references. These range in value from $9,000 to $11,000.A total of 3,215 copies of Moby-Dick were sold during Melville's life (he died in 1891). Another collectible edition is the 1930 first edition illustrated by Rockwell Kent, a three-volume set published by the Lakeside Press with acetate dust jackets in an aluminum slipcase. Also, expect heavy wear and maybe even minor repair. Most of the first editions have orange end-papers, although there are 2 known volumes with rare white-endpapers.īecause of Nineteenth-century printing practices, and the time-lapse between when the first-editions were published and Melville became collectible, oxidized paper, bumped and chipped spines, and brittle wrappers are all common for even the most expensive and collectible of these books, which can sell from $35,000 to $100,000. After two years copies of the first edition were still available, and almost 300 were destroyed in the 1853 fire of Harper's warehouse. About 1,500 sold in 11 days, but then sales slowed to less than 300 the next year. Of the 2,951 copies printed, 125 were review copies. Melville changed the title to Moby Dick a month later, November 1851, when the American Version was published in one volume by Harper & Brothers in NY. The remaining unbound sheets were bound in a cheaper casing in 1852, and in 1853 there were still enough remaining sheets to again bind into an even cheaper edition. Richard Bentley to reduce the printing to only 500 copies, and of that, only 300 sold in the first 4 months. Slow sales of Melville's previously books convinced Publisher L. Melville's classic was first published in England as three volumes titled The Whale in October 1851.

Moby-Dick or, the Whale by Herman Melville