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With an Introduction and Notes by David Herd, Lecturer in English and American Literature at the University of Kent at Canterbury and co-editor of 'Poetry Review'. 'Moby Dick' is the story of Captain Ahab's quest to avenge the whale that 'reaped' his leg. The quest is an obsession and the novel is a diabolical study of how a man becomes a fanatic. But it is also a hymn to democracy. Bent as the crew is on Ahab's appalling crusade, it is equally the image of a co-operative community at work: all hands dependent on all hands, each individual responsible for the security of each. Among the crew is Ishmael, the novel's narrator, ordinary sailor, and extraordinary reader. Digressive, allusive, vulgar, transcendent, the story Ishmael tells is above all an education: in the practice of whaling, in the art of writing. Expanding to equal his 'mighty theme' not only the whale but all things sublime Melville breathes in the world's great literature. Moby Dick is the greatest novel ever written by an American. AUTHOR: The writing career of Herman Melville (1819 1891) peaked early, with his early novels, such as 'Typee' becoming best sellers. By the mid-1850s his popularity declined sharply, and by the time he died he had been largely forgotten. Yet in time his novel 'Moby Dick' came to be regarded as one of the finest works of American, and indeed world, literature, as was 'Billy Budd', which was not published until long after his death, in 1924.