Search results for ""Author Herman Melville""

This facsimile of Melville's historical novel appears in a paperback classroom edition, with a commentary by Hennig Cohen. "Israel Potter" is the story of a neglected hero of the American Revolution.

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This volume, first published in 1856, includes three of the tales widely considered to be among Melville’s masterpieces. In ‘Bartleby, the Scrivener’, a Wall Street lawyer hires a melancholy young clerk called Bartleby, whose sudden and mysterious refusal to work plunges the firm into disarray. ‘Benito Cereno’ is the account of a mutiny on a slave ship, based on the real-life journals of an American sea captain. ‘The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles’ is a series of sketches about the Galápagos Islands which was a huge success with the reading public and contains some of Melville’s most celebrated prose. Also included in this volume are ‘The Lightning-Rod Man’, ‘The Bell Tower’ and a story written especially for the collection, ‘The Piazza’. Taken together, these tales, in their masterful use of irony and concision, display the author of Moby Dick at his most uncompromising and compelling.

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When the young Ishmael gets on board Captain Ahab’s whaling ship, little does he suspect that the mission on which he is about to embark is the fulfilment of his master’s obsessive desire for revenge on Moby Dick, a white whale who has already claimed countless human victims and destroyed many fleets. With some sinister crew members in their midst and the hazardous conditions of the sea to contend with, the expedition becomes increasingly dangerous the closer it gets to its quarry. One of the great American novels, if not the greatest, Moby Dick epically combines rip-roaring adventure, a meticulously realistic portrayal of the whaling trade and a profound philosophical disquisition on the nature of good and evil.

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`Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges.' So wrote Melville of Billy Budd, Sailor, among the greatest of his works and, in its richness and ambiguity, among the most problematic. As the critic E. L. Grant Watson writes, `In this short history of the impressment and hanging of a handsome sailor-boy are to be discovered problems as profound as those which puzzle us in the pages of the Gospels.' Outwardly a compelling narrative of events aboard a British man-of-war during the turmoil of the Napoleonic Wars, Billy Budd, Sailor is a nautical recasting of the Fall, a parable of good and evil, a meditation on justice and political governance, and a searching portrait of three extraordinary men. The passion it has aroused in its readers over the years is a measure of how deeply it addresses some of the fundamental questions of experience that every age must reexamine for itself. The selection in this volume represents the best of Melville's shorter fiction, and uses the most authoritative texts. The eight shorter tales included here were composed during Melville's years as a magazine writer in the mid 1850's and establish him, along with Hawthorne and Poe, as the greatest American story writer of his age. Several of the tales - Bartleby the Scrivener, Benito Cereno, The Encantadas, The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids - are acknowledged masterpieces of their genres. All show Melville a master of irony, point-of-view, and tone whose fables ripple out in nearly endless circles of meaning. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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Onboard the Fidèle, a steamboat floating down the Mississippi to New Orleans, a confidence man sets out to defraud his fellow passengers. In quick succession he assumes numerous guises - from a legless beggar and a worldly businessman to a collector for charitable causes and a 'cosmopolitan' gentleman, who simply swindles a barber out of the price of a shave. Making very little from his hoaxes, the pleasure of trickery seems an end in itself for this slippery conman. Is he the Devil? Is his chicanery merely intended to expose the mercenary concerns of those around him? Set on April Fool's Day, The Confidence-Man (1857) is an engaging comedy of masquerades, digressions and shifting identity, and a devastating satire on the American dream.

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Encuadernación: RústicaColección: Escolar

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En 1843, después de tres años en los mares del sur, Melville se enroló en la fragata United States y volvió a América. Un año de travesía sometido a la dura disciplina naval le proporcionó el material de Chaqueta Blanca (1850), un libro hermoso y complejo, mezcla de novela, erudición y reportaje, cuyo subtítulo, El mundo en un buque de guerra, anticipa igualmente su peculiar, intensa y muy melvilleana dimensión alegórica. De las bodegas a las gavias, de las rutinas de limpieza o rancho a las vergonzosas prácticas de flagelación, del tormentoso paso del cabo de Hornos a una calma chicha en el ecuador, el narrador de este viaje no deja rincón sin escudriñar, episodio sin relatar, oficio sin describir.

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Fondeado en el puerto de Santa María, una pequeñaisla frente a la costa de Chile, el capitánAmasa Delano, al mando del buque mercante estadounidenseBachelor?s Delight, divisa un barcoque parece estar en apuros. Al acercarse, ve que setrata de un mercante español, el Santo Domingo,dedicado al transporte de negros, y compruebaque, en efecto, ha pasado muchas calamidades:después de una serie de tormentas al pasar el cabode Hornos, ha estado a punto de naufragar, el escorbutoy la fiebre han acabado con un gran númerode oficiales, y apenas tiene comida y agua. Así se locuenta el capitán, don Benito Cereno, pálido, enfermoy con ciertos indicios de trastorno mental. Hay, sin embargo, otros indicios de que lasituación es aún más anómala de lo que parece.

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Herman Melville (1819-1891) no había cumplido aún los veinte años cuando su espíritu aventurero lo llevó a embarcarse rumbo a las islas del Pacífico Sur, viajes que inspiraron sus primeras obras: Taipi, un edén canibal (1846, El Club Diógenes, 143), Omoo (1847), Mardi (1849) y Redburn (1849). Tras el enorme esfuerzo de redacción de su obra maestra Moby Dick (1851), Melville inicia la escritura de una serie de relatos, entre los que se encuentran dos de los más aclamados: Bartleby, el escribiente (CD, 126) y Benito Cereno (CD, 266), que reuniría en 1856 bajo el título de The Piazza Tales.Las Encantadas forma parte de esta colección. Redactada en una serie de diez scketchs, Las Encantadas (1854) va más allá de una mera descripción geográfica de las Islas Galápagos, de su rica fauna y de su extraordinaria historia, para transformarse ante los ojos del lector en un paisaje literario, poético e incluso mítico. El prime

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Llamadme Ismael. Muy pocos personajes literarios hay hoy tan conocidos como la ballena blanca, o Ismael o el capitán Ajab, y probablemente no haya un inicio de novela tan famoso como el de Moby-Dick. Concebida por Herman Melville como respuesta norteamericana a la gran literatura europea de finales del siglo XVIII y principios del XIX, Moby-Dick recoge la tradición romántica y gótica dando forma a un épico poema que ha llegado a ocupar en Estados Unidos el puesto de gran novela nacional y a ser considerada como la gran epopeya en prosa del mundo occidental contemporáneo.

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Una de las novelas más conocidas de Herman Melville es Benito Cereno, publicada en 1855, y basada en la historia real del español Benito Cerreño, de cuyo buque, el Tryal, se apoderaron en 1804 los esclavos que llevaba por aguas del Pacífico rumbo a Lima, donde esperaba venderlos. En un momento histórico en el que los revolucionarios, primero en Estados Unidos y después en Francia, subrayaban el valor absoluto de la libertad, la esclavitud alcanzaba cifras mucho más elevadas que en los siglos precedentes, planteando, sobre todo en América, la paradoja moral de si libertad era también poder comprar, vender y poseer esclavos. Como señaló Jorge Luis Borges Benito Cereno sigue suscitando polémicas. Hay quien lo juzga la obra maestra de Melville y una de las obras maestras de la literatura.

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Few literary masterpieces cast quite as awesome a shadow as Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Captain Ahab’s quest for the white whale is a timeless epic – a thrilling tale of vengeance and obsession, and a searing parable about humanity lost in a universe of moral ambiguity. Inspired by true events, Moby Dick is a work of astonishing psychological depth. It is perhaps the greatest sea story ever told and one of the great classics of literature. ‘Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee…’

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This is about the quest of Captain Ahab, a man consumed by his obsession with a legendary, giant white whale, Moby Dick. As the ship sails into dangerous waters, The captain's hysterical pursuit becomes a symbol for the inherent, often destructive, nature of human ambition. "Moby-Dick" is not merely a tale of daring do; it is a profound meditation on the human condition itself. It can be read as part thriller, part sea adventure and part allegory.

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Pearson English Readers bring language learning to life through the joy of reading. Well-written stories entertain us, make us think, and keep our interest page after page. Pearson English Readers offer teenage and adult learners a huge range of titles, all featuring carefully graded language to make them accessible to learners of all abilities. Through the imagination of some of the world’s greatest authors, the English language comes to life in pages of our Readers. Students have the pleasure and satisfaction of reading these stories in English, and at the same time develop a broader vocabulary, greater comprehension and reading fluency, improved grammar, and greater confidence and ability to express themselves. Find out more at english.com/readers

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The Penguin English Library Edition of Moby-Dick by Herman Melville'The frail gunwales bent in, collapsed, and snapped, as both jaws, like an enormous shears, sliding further aft, bit the craft completely in twain...'Moby-Dick is one of the most expansive feats of imagination in the whole of literature: the mad, raging, Shakespearean tale of Captain Ahab's insane quest to kill a giant white whale that has taken his leg, and upon which he has sworn vengeance, at any cost. A creation unlike any other, this is an epic story of fatal monomania and the deepest dreams and obsessions of mankind.The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.

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El amplio mar, la constante contemplación del horizonte en busca de la presa, la abigarrada tripulación del " Pequod " , ballenero comandado por un capitán tullido y obsesionado por su venganza... Surgiendo de la profundidad de las aguas, como un espectro, la encarnación del Mal: Moby Dick, la ballena blanca...

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Encuadernación: RústicaColección: LiteraturaPocos personajes tan insólitos en la historia de la literatura como "Bartleby el escribiente" y también pocos relatos más sugerentes que aquel al que da nombre. Marcada por una lógica propia cuyas consecuencias lleva con obstinación hasta el final y que se encarna en una suerte de resistencia pasiva, la singularidad del protagonista es, por otra parte, irreductible. Escritos todos ellos ?Bartleby incluido ? tras el estrepitoso fiasco comercial que supuso la publicación en 1851 de "Moby Dick", el resto de relatos de Herman Melville (1819-1891) que completan el volumen tienen en común, aparte de su intrínseca belleza y singularidad, ese aire de serena y dichosa resignación de quien discierne entre las derivas externas y la firmeza interior. Se trata de El fracaso feliz, La veranda ?preciosa parábola acerca de la fantasía con que investimos las apariencias? y dos relatos tardíos acerca de marinos que finalizan sus días varados en tierra:

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HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. ‘Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee…’ Few literary masterpieces cast quite as awesome a shadow as Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Captain Ahab’s quest for the white whale is a timeless epic – a thrilling tale of vengeance and obsession, and a searing parable about humanity lost in a universe of moral ambiguity. Inspired by true events, Moby Dick is a work of astonishing psychological depth. It is perhaps the greatest sea story ever told and one of the great classics of literature.

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American writer Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick in 1851 but it took decades before finally it was regarded as a great American novel, and worthy of its place amongst the greatest texts of humankind. It recounts the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of a whaling ship seeking vengeance on Moby Dick, the white whale that had bitten off Ahab's leg on a previous voyage. Flame Tree Gothic Fantasy, Classic Stories and Epic Tales collections bring together the entire range of myth, folklore and modern short fiction. Highlighting the roots of suspense, supernatural, science fiction and mystery stories, the books in Flame Tree Collections series are beautifully presented, perfect as a gift and offer a lifetime of reading pleasure.

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Part of the Norton Library series The Norton Library edition of Moby-Dick features the text of the first U.S. edition. An introduction by Jeffrey Insko celebrates the novel as a love letter to language and explores the landscape of allegorical interpretations—from the impending doom of environmental crises to the shifting of sociocultural and intellectual sensibilities—that make the novel as timely today as it was in 1851. The Norton Library is a growing collection of high-quality texts and translations—influential works of literature and philosophy—introduced and edited by leading scholars. Norton Library editions prepare readers for their first encounter with the works that they’ll re-read over a lifetime. Inviting introductions highlight the work’s significance and influence, providing the historical and literary context students need to dive in with confidence. Endnotes and an easy-to-read design deliver an uninterrupted reading experience, encouraging students to read the text first and refer to endnotes for more information as needed. An affordable price (most $10 or less) encourages students to buy the book and to come to class with the assigned edition. About the Editor: Jeffrey Insko is Professor of English at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, where he teaches courses in nineteenth-century American Literature and Culture and the Environmental Humanities. He is the author of History, Abolition, and the Ever-Present Now in Antebellum American Writing (2018).

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Journey to the heart of the sea with this larger-than-life classic. Regarded as the Great American Novel, Moby Dick is the ultimate tale of seeking vengeance. Narrated by the crew member Ishmael, this epic whaling adventure follows the crew of the Pequod, as its captain, Ahab, descends deeper and deeper into madness on his quest to find and kill the white whale that maimed him. Beyond the surface—of ship life, whaling, and the hunt for the elusive Moby Dick—are allegorical references to life, and even the universe, in this masterpiece by Herman Melville. Complete and unabridged, this newly designed edition features an introduction by American literature scholar Christopher McBride and a timeline of the life and times of Herman Melville. Essential volumes for the shelves of every classic literature lover, the Chartwell Classics series includes beautifully presented works and collections from some of the most important authors in literary history. Chartwell Classics are the editions of choice for the most discerning literature buffs. Other titles in the Chartwell Classics Series include: The Essential Tales & Poems of Edgar Allen Poe; The Essential Tales of H.P. Lovecraft; The Federalist Papers; The Inferno; The Call of the Wild and White Fang; Emma; The Odyssey; Pride and Prejudice; Grimm’s Fairy Tales; The Alchemist; The Great Gatsby; The Secret Garden; Anne of Green Gables; The Phantom of the Opera; The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital; The Republic; Frankenstein; Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea; The Picture of Dorian Gray; Meditations; Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass; A Tales of Two Cities; Beowulf; The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Little Women; Wuthering Heights; Peter Pan; Persuasion; Aesop’s Fables; The Constitution of the United States and Selected Writings; Crime and Punishment; Dracula; Great Expectations; The Iliad; Irish and Fairy Folk Tales; The Legend of Sleepy Hollow; The War of the Worlds; and The Time Machine and The Invisible Man.

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The text here is based on Hershel Parker and Harrison Hayford’s 1967 edition, footnoted to include biographical discoveries. Reviews, letters by Melville and belated praise is collected, and a wealth of new biographical material has been added, while new research is highlighted. Parker also explores what writing Moby-Dick cost Melville and his family.

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"It will be a strange sort of a book, tho', I fear; blubber is blubber you know; tho' you may get oil out of it, the poetry runs as hard as sap from a frozen maple tree;--& to cook the thing up, one must needs throw in a little fancy.... Yet I mean to give the truth of the thing, spite of this." Moby-Dick has a monumental reputation. Less well known are the novel's unexpectedly weird, funny, tantalizing, messy, and wondrous moments. Narrator Ishmael, along with the whaleship Pequod's other "meanest mariners, and renegades and castaways", is beguiled into joining Captain Ahab in his vengeful pursuit of the white whale that "dismasted" him. But along the way, Ishmael takes the reader along many a detour into variegated ways of knowing. In a tone "strangely compounded of fun and fury", Moby-Dick brings outlandish curiosity to bear on the multitudinous, oceanic scale of our diverse world. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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