Moby-Dick: Illustrated by Rockwell Kent

· Top Five Books
Ebook
656
Pages
Eligible
This book will become available on January 1, 2026. You will not be charged until it is released.

About this ebook

This Top Five Classics illustrated edition of Herman Melville' s Moby-Dick includes: • More than 270 black-and-white illustrations by Rockwell Kent from his 1930 Lakeside Press edition • The complete, unabridged text of Melville' s classic from his definitive 1851 American edition • A helpful glossary of terms • Detailed biographies of both Herman Melville and Rockwell Kent Moby-Dick, mostly ignored upon its publication in 1851 and during the author' s lifetime, underwent a dramatic reappraisal during the early years of the 20th century, when it came to epitomize the Great American Novel— in no small part due to the 1930 Lakeside Press edition that featured Rockwell Kent' s starkly beautiful pen-and-ink illustrations that would help define the novel for a new generation of readers. An enigmatic tale of the sea, whaling, and obsession, Melville drew on themes from the Bible and the works of Shakespeare to craft a uniquely American story that continues to fascinate and enthrall today.

About the author

Herman Melville was born in 1819 in New York City, the grandson of two Revolutionary War heroes. He began his career as an author in 1845 with the publication of the novel Typee, which recounted and fictionalized some of his adventures over three and a half years at sea on whaling and naval ships in the South Pacific. The book's success enabled Melville to write four more novels, including Omoo (1847) before publishing his masterpiece, Moby-Dick, in 1851. Met with an indifferent response when it was published, the book and author fell into obscurity until decades after the author passed away in 1891. In the early part of the twentieth century, the author and his work would undergo a radical reappraisal, and Moby-Dick would be recognized as one of the truly Great American Novels ever written.

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