Moby-Dick, or, the Whale: Illustration
"It is the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships' cables and hawsers.

A Polar wind blows through it, and birds of prey hover over it."

So Melville wrote of his masterpiece, one of the greatest works of imagination in literary
history. In part, Moby-Dick is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy
war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. But more
than just a novel of adventure, more than an encyclopaedia of whaling lore and legend, the
book can be seen as part of its author's lifelong meditation on America. Written with
wonderfully redemptive humour, Moby-Dick is also a profound inquiry into character, faith,
and the nature of perception.