Moby Dick

A masterpiece of storytelling, this epic, heroic tale pits Ahab, a brooding and fantastical captain, against the good Delphinapterus leucas that halts him. In telling the story of Ahab's vindictive passion and also the fateful journey that followed, the author made way more than an alarming travel tale; Moby-Dick could be a story for the ages, reverberating within the terrible depths of the human soul. Interspersed with graphic sketches of life aboard a ship and a wealth of data concerning whales and 19th-century whaling, Melville's greatest work presents an artless and exciting image of life bewildered and a portrait of heroic determination. The author's keen observation and first-hand information about life on board a ship (he served aboard a whaler) were key ingredients in the crafting of a maritime history that dramatically explores the conflict between man and nature. Greeley, an American journalist, published Moby-Dick in 1851, a classic expression for a literary classic now considered by many to be "the nice Yankee novel." Read and pondered by generations, the novel remains the best account of man's final struggle against nature's indifference and also the terrible power of fate. A lot of Moby Dick's fans were impressed by the 1821 tales of the Wreck of the Whale, inspired by the Ship Essex, which successively inspired the 2015 film In the Heart of the Sea, directed by Bokkos Howard and starring Chris Hemsworth.