The Essex and the Whale
Melville's Leviathan Library and the Birth of Moby-Dick
- 320 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
This fascinating anthology introduces readers to the literary side of Herman Melville's whaling world with an unprecedented collection of the original whaling texts from which Melville drew to create his masterpiece, Moby-Dick. The notorious 1820 sinking of the whaleship Essex inspired Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, as recounted in Nathaniel Philbrick's bestselling book In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex —now a major motion picture. But how exactly did Melville transmute the historic tragedy of the Essex into what is arguably the "Great American Novel"? Here, for the first time, R.D. Madison collects together Melville's personal "library" of whaling and whale-lore into a single volume and presents these primary sources in a way that readers can readily see how a horrific whaling tragedy became a literary masterpiece. But where did Moby-Dick begin? Prompted by sailor-author Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Melville supplemented his own firsthand experience as a whaleman in the South Pacific with "libraries" of books that he "swum through" to create his whaling masterpiece. Scholars and lay readers alike have long wondered how he did it, and over the past 60 years, a very tight theory of inspiration and creation has emerged. It is very likely wrong. This volume gathers together for the first time all of the main texts that Melville encountered, including the accounts of the unique sinking of the Essex by a sperm whale that provided the climax for Moby-Dick. Melville scholar R. D. Madison examines what critics have said about Melville's response to the sinking and offers the challenging thesis that Melville did not even begin the book at all until spurred on by Dana in the spring of 1850.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Half Title
- Title
- Copyright
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Swimming through Libraries
- Further Reading
- A Note on the Texts
- Illustrations
- Herman Melville, "Chapter 45: The Affidavit," Moby-Dick or the Whale (1851)
- Owen Chase, Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex (1821)
- Jeremiah N. Reynolds, "Mocha Dick; Or the White Whale of the Pacific: A Leaf from a Manuscript Journal" (1839)
- From "Gallapagos Islands; Prizes," David Porter, Journal of a Cruise Made to the Pacific Ocean (1815)
- From Francis Allyn Olmsted, Incidents of a Whaling Voyage (1841)
- From Frederick Debell Bennett, Narrative of a Whaling Voyage round the Globe (1840)
- From Charles H. Barnard, A Narrative of the Sufferings and Adventures of Capt. Charles H. Barnard, in a Voyage round the World (1836)
- From Charles Darwin, Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited during the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle (1846)
- From J. Ross Browne, Etchings of a Whaling Cruise (1846)
- From Charles Wilkes, "Currents and Whaling," Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition (1844)
- From Pierre Bayle, An Historical and Critical Dictionary (1710)
- From James Fenimore Cooper, The Pilot; A Tale of the Sea (1824) and The Sea Lions; or, the Lost Sealers (1849)
- From Nathaniel Ames, A Mariner's Sketches (1830)
- From "Whales," Penny Cyclopædia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (1843)
- From Henry Trumbull, Life and Remarkable Adventures of Israel R. Potter (1824)
- C. Hamilton Smith, "Whale," in John Kitto, Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature (1845)
- From William Scoresby, Account of the Arctic Regions, with a History and Description of the Northern Whale Fishery (1820)
- From Thomas Beale, The Natural History of the Sperm Whale (1839)
- From James Colnett, A Voyage to the South Atlantic and round Cape Horn into the Pacific Ocean, for the Purpose of Extending the Spermaceti Whale Fisheries (1798)
- From Horatio Hastings Weld, Ribs and Trucks, from Davy's Locker (1842)
- From William Dampier, A New Voyage round the World (1729)
- From Joseph C. Hart, Miriam Coffin, or the Whale-Fishermen (1834)
- From Obed Macy, The History of Nantucket (1835)
- From Henry T. Cheever, The Whale and His Captors; or, The Whaleman's Adventures, and the Whale's Biography (1850)
- Herman Melville, Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage to the Holy Land (1876)
- Herman Melville's Sea Routes
- Index