Herman Melville

Moby-Dick, novel in two parts Herman Melville

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is a 1851 novel by Herman Melville considered an outstanding work of Romanticism and the American Renaissance. A sailor called Ishmael narrates the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaler Pequod, for revenge on the white whale Moby Dick, which on a previous voyage destroyed his ship and severed his leg at the knee. Herman Melville (1819-1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet from the American Renaissance period. Best known for his sea adventure Typee (1846) and his whaling novel Moby-Dick (1851). Melville's writing draws on his experience at sea as a common sailor, exploration of literature and philosophy, and engagement in the contradictions of American society in a period of rapid change.