THE GREAT WORKS OF HERMAN MELVILLE
Description
Herman Melville (1819-1891), American novelist, was a major literary figure whose exploration of psychological and metaphysical themes foreshadowed 20th-century literary concerns. Melville's first few novels all achieved quick popularity. Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846) and Omoo. In 1850, Melville moved to a farm near Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where he became an intimate friend of the American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, to whom Melville dedicated his masterpiece, Moby Dick; or The Whale (1851). "The Great Works of Herman Melville' is a masterpiece consisting of evergreen writings such as Typee and Moby Dick. The central theme of this novel is the conflict between Captain Ahab, master of the whaler Pequod, and Moby Dick, a great white whale that once tore off one of Ahab's legs at the knee. Ahab is dedicated to revenge; he drives himself and his crew, which includes Ishmael, the narrator of the story, over the seas in a desperate search for his enemy.