Table of Contents

"For this Sesquicentennial Norton Critical Edition, the Northwestern-Newberry text of Moby-Dick has been generously footnoted to include dozens of biographical discoveries, mainly from Hershel Parker's work on his two-volume biography of Melville.

A section of ""Whaling and Whalecraft"" features prose and graphics by John B. Putnam, a sample of contemporary whaling engravings, as well as, new to this edition, an engraving of Tupai Cupa, the real-life inspiration for the character of Queequeg.

Evoking Melville's fascination with the fluidity of categories like savagery and civilization, the image of Tupai Cupa fittingly introduces ""Before Moby-Dick: International Controversy over Melville,"" a new section that documents the ferocity of religions, political, and sexual hostility toward Melville in reaction to his early books, beginning with Typee in 1846.

The image of Tupai Cupa also evokes Melville's interest in the mystery of self-identity and the possibility of knowing another person's ""queenly personality"" (Chapter 119). That theme (focused on Melville, Ishmael, and Ahab) is pursued in ""A Handful of Critical Challenges,"" from Walter E. Bezanson's classic centennial study through Harrison Hayford's meditation on ""Loomings"" and recent essays by Camille Paglia and John Wenke.

In ""Reviews and Letters by Melville,"" a letter has been redated and a wealth of new biographical material has been added to the footnotes, notably to Melville's ""Hawthorne and His Mosses."" ""Analogues and Sources"" retains classic pieces by J. N. Reynolds and Owen Chase, as well as new findings by Geoffrey Sanborn and Steven Olsen-Smith. ""Reviews of Moby-Dick"" emphasizes the ongoing religious hostility toward Melville and highlights new discoveries, such as the first-known Scottish review of The Whale.

""Posthumous Praise and the Melville Revival: 1893-1927"" collects belated, enthusiastic praise up through that of William Faulkner. ""Biographical Cross-Light"" is Hershel Parker's somber look at what writing Moby-Dick cost Melville and his family.

From Foreword through Selected Bibliography, this Sesquicentennial Norton Critical Edition is uniquely valuable as the most up-to-date and comprehensive documentary source for study of Moby-Dick."

About the Author

Herman Melville was born in New York City on August 1, 1819, the third child of Maria and Allan Gansevoort Melvill. (The final e was added to the family name later.) His father’s financial difficulties and his early death while Melville was still a youth disrupted his formal education. Instead, Melville tried his hand at a variety of occupations before joining the crew of a merchant ship bound for England in 1839. Two years later he sailed to the South Seas aboard the whaler Acushnet. His early fiction, like the novels Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847), drew upon and often embellished his exotic maritime adventures, earning him both popular and critical acclaim. But by the time he published Moby-Dick in 1851, his writing career was in decline, as both sales and praise of his works dwindled. Although he would subsequently publish two more novels and a number of short stories—including the masterpieces “Bartleby, the Scrivener” and “Benito Cereno”—Melville spent the last three decades of his life primarily writing poetry. Largely forgotten at the time of his death on April 19, 1891, Melville, along with his unfinished novella Billy Budd, was rediscovered and his reputation revived in the early decades of the twentieth century. Hershel Parker is a co-editor of The Norton Anthology of American Literature, and of the Norton Critical Edition of Melville’s The Confidence-Man and Moby Dick. He is co-editor of the multi-volume The Writings of Herman Melville (Northwestern-Newberry). Harrison Hayford is co-editor of the multi-volume The Writings of Herman Melville (Northwestern-Newberry), and editor of the Library of America Melville, in addition to many other works.

Reviews

Moby-Dick is one of our greatest and most enduring works. The physically and psychologically scarred Ahab's at-any-cost pursuit of the white whale is a riveting tale with considerable philosophical overtones. Then there is Melville's invention of the Pequod, a microcosm of humanity together with his mythopoeic vision of both the greatness and self-destructive tendencies of America. Finally, there is the intricate narrative technique itself, with the story of Ishmael, Queequeg, and Ahab constantly being interrupted for minutia about the whaling industry and numerous other subjects, often with digressions within digressions. At first, Paul Boehmer seems a tad youthful and earnest to convey this momentous yarn, but, after all, this is the story of the young and inexperienced Ishmael. In addition to avoiding an overly melodramatic voice for Ahab, Boehmer offers an exceptionally well-measured performance, alternating between the calm and the enthusiastic. An excellent production; recommended for all collections.-Michael Adams, CUNY Graduate Ctr. Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

Gr 4-8-In trimming Melville's leviathan novel down to picture-book length, some of what made the original so intriguing is inevitably lost; what this version retains is the main action of the story and details of life at sea. The former is captured admirably by dramatic illustrations that have a classic comic-book feel. Unfortunately, the flow of the story is often confusing: the loss of a first-person narrator relegates Ishmael to near nonexistence; the flow of images can be disjointed, leaving readers wondering what panel to read next; and the text, while suitably hyperbolic, is awkwardly reliant on ellipses and exclamation marks. Just as in the original tale, information on whalers and whaling appears throughout the work, yet here the handling is uneven. "Ambergris" is clarified in a side panel, "captor pilings" go unexplained, and "scrimshaw" is mentioned in one of three short essays (on Melville; whales; and New Bedford, CT) that bookend the main text. Readers looking for an introduction to Melville's most famous work may find this title useful; otherwise, it is an additional purchase, particularly for those who already own Will Eisner's mythic comic adaptation (NBM, 2001) or those lucky enough to have acquired Bill Sienkiewicz's breathtaking "Classics Illustrated" edition (Berkley, 1990).-Douglas P. Davey, Guelph Public Library, Ontario, Canada Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

The great white resurfaces in this gripping, comic book-style retelling. Comic-strip veterans Schwartz and Giordano condense Melville's leviathan tale into an action-packed, 48-page adventure. Despite forgoing Melville's "Call me Ishmael" first-person narrative and sensory details, this retelling closely adheres to the original plot, including some pivotal scenes absent from Allan Drummond's spare but entertaining 1997 Moby Dick. The dense story clips along, thanks to concise but appealingly hammy storytelling and melodramatic drawings, plus multiple panels that quicken the pace. When Ishmael meets Queequeg, for instance, the author squeezes out every drop of suspense: "There in the dimly lit room looms the forbidding image of Queequeg... harpoon at the ready, poised to sink its sharp head into his shaking body!!" Giordano ratchets up the tension with a series of close-ups of Ishmael's terrified face as he awakens to the "savage" in his rented room. The brooding, dark-toned panels exude imminent danger-an ideal milieu for Captain Ahab's doomed voyage. The book also provides a brief biography of Melville, as well as facts about whaling and New Bedford, Mass., the city that commissioned this retelling in celebration of the 150th anniversary (in 2001) of Moby Dick's original publication. Ages 8-up. (Oct.)