Moby Dick

Name: Moby Dick
Brand: Recorded Books
Availability: InStock
Rating: 5 (1 reviews)
Author: Herman Melville
ISBN: 9781436100021

Author: Herman Melville

Narrator: Frank Muller

Unabridged: 21 hr 11 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 05/30/2008

Categories: Fiction, Classic, Action & Adventure

Synopsis

Its famous opening line, "Call me Ishmael," dramatic in its stark simplicity, begins an epic that is widely regarded as the greatest novel ever written by an American. Labeled variously a realistic story of whaling, a romance of unusual adventure and eccentric characters, a symbolic allegory, and a drama of heroic conflict, Moby Dick is first and foremost a great story. It has both the humor and poignancy of a simple sea ballad, as well as the depth and universality of a grand odyssey.

When Melville's father died in 1832, the young man's financial security went too. For a while he turned to school-mastering and clerking, but failed to make a sustainable income. In 1840 he signed up on the whaler, Acushnet, out of New Bedford, Massachusetts. He was just 21. A whaler's life turned out to be both arduous and dangerous, and in 1842, Melville deserted ship. Out of this experience and a wealth of printed sources, Melville crafted his masterpiece.

About Herman Melville

Herman Melville (1819–1891) was an American novelist, short-story writer, essayist, and poet who is often classified as part of dark romanticism. He is best known for his novel Moby Dick and novella Billy Budd, the latter which was published posthumously. His first three books gained much attention, the first becoming a bestseller, but after a fast-blooming literary success in the late 1840s, his popularity declined precipitously in the mid-1850s and never recovered during his lifetime. When he died, he was almost completely forgotten. It was not until the "Melville Revival" in the early twentieth century that his work won recognition, most notably Moby Dick, which was hailed as one of the chief literary masterpieces of both American and world literature.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Michael on January 02, 2023

QUICK UPDATE: James Cameron totally ripped off and plagiarized Melville in the abysmally written Avatar 2. He should have listed Moby Dick in the credits…(view spoiler)[and saved the Ishmael character - the biologist - but, alas, he didn’t. (hide spoiler)] I re-read Moby-Dick following my research trips to the whaling museums of......more

Goodreads review by Vit on February 09, 2024

The narrator of this flabbergasting marine saga is an impecunious but very erudite young man possessing a sarcastic sense of humour and having a tongue-in-cheek attitude to life… Call me Ishmael. Some years ago – never mind how long precisely – having little or no money in my purse, and nothing parti......more

Goodreads review by Federico on April 22, 2024

Dude, let it go already! Massachusetts, 1830s. Ishmael is a young mariner spending time at a local inn, resting from his last sea voyage. When the lure of the seas calls again he signs up to join the crew of the Pequod, a whaler ship leaving dock soon. In charge of the expedition, the implacable A......more

Goodreads review by s.penkevich on March 16, 2025

Love it or hate it, whenever someone asks if Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick is worth reading I always enthusiastically say yes you should, yes it's worth it, yes, yes like some weirdass library Molly Bloom. An epic seafaring quest—one that is a prime example of how a major theme in literature is Don’t......more

Goodreads review by karen on June 25, 2018

i tried. Both ends of the line are exposed; the lower end terminating in an eye-splice or loop coming up from the bottom against the side of the tub, and hanging over its edge completely disengaged from everything. This arrangement of the lower end is necessary on two accounts. First: In order to fac......more