Moby-Dick, Or The Whale: Volume 6, Scholarly Edition

Front Cover
Northwestern University Press, Sep 9, 1988 - Fiction - 1043 pages
In Moby Dick Melville set out to write a "mighty book" on "a mighty theme." The editors of this critical text affirm that he succeeded. Nevertheless, their prolonged examination of the novel reveals textual flaws and anomalies that help to explain Melville's fears that his great work was in some ways a hash or a botch. A lengthy historical note also gives a fresh account of Melville's earlier literary career and his working conditions as he wrote; it also analyzes the book's contemporary reception and outlines how it finally achieved fame. Other sections review theories of the book's genesis, detail the circumstances of its publication, and present documents closely relating to the story.

This scholarly edition is based on collations of both editions published during Melville's lifetime, it adopts 185 revisions and corrections from the English edition and incorporates 237 emendations by the series editors. This is an Approved Text of the Center for Editions of American Authors (Modern Language Association of America).
 

Selected pages

Contents

Loomings
3
Chapter 5
29
Chapter 9
41
Chapter
52
Biographical
55
Nantucket
63
Chapter
86
Chapter
92
Chapter 74
329
Chapter 76
336
The Prairie
345
Chapter 81
351
Chapter 82
361
Chapter 84
367
Chapter 93
411
The Cassock
419

Chapter 20
95
Chapter 22
102
The Advocate
108
Chapter 26
115
Chapter
120
Chapter 28
122
Chapter 30
129
Chapter 33
146
Chapter 35
154
The QuarterDeck Ahab and
160
Chapter 37
167
Chapter 40
173
Chapter 42
188
Chapter 43
196
The Affidavit
203
Chapter 46
211
Chapter 48
217
Chapter 49
226
ix
260
Brit
272
The Line
278
Chapter 62
287
Chapter 65
298
The Blanket
305
The Pequod meets the Jeroboam Her Story
319
Chapter 97
426
The Decanter
443
Chapter 103
452
Chapter 105
459
Chapter 107
466
The Cabin
473
Chapter 111
482
The Gilder
491
The WhaleWatch
498
Midnight Aloft
512
Chapter 125
520
Chapter 127
527
Chapter 129
534
Chapter 131
540
The Chase First
546
Chapter 134
555
Chapter 135
563
Epilogue
573
Discussions of Adopted Readings
772
Report of LineEnd Hyphenation
921
List of Substantive Variants
929
RELATED DOCUMENTS
955
The Hubbard Copy of The Whale
1005
The Jones Copy of MobyDick and the Harper Whale Title Page
1021
Copyright

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About the author (1988)

HERMAN MELVILLE (1819–1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick. His first three books gained much contemporary attention (the first, Typee, becoming a bestseller), and 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 in 1891, he was almost completely forgotten. It was not until the "Melville Revival" in the early 20th century that his work won recognition, especially Moby-Dick, which was hailed as one of the literary masterpieces of both American and world literature. He was the first writer to have his works collected and published by the Library of America.