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Moby Dick
by Herman Melville (1819-1891)
Born in New York City, the son of New England merchant.
He worked at odd jobs (clerk, garmhand, teacher)
before sailing to the South Seas on the whaler i{Acushnet}.
He deserted his ship, lived among cannibals, mutinied on
an Australian boat, then spent two years on an American
boat returning to the U.S. He successfully romanticized
these adventures, publishing seven novels in six years,
including i{Moby Dick} (1851), one of the masterworks of
American fiction. His popularity waned, and by the time
he died he was virtually forgotten. i{Billy Budd} was
his last great novel. As his writing declined, Melville
sailed again, around Cape Horn to San Francisco on a clipper
ship commanded by his brother.
File: Contents:
moby.0 Preliminary Matter. \ This text of Melville's Moby-Dick is based on
moby.1 LOOMINGS\ Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how
moby.2 THE CARPET-BAG\ I stuffed a shirt or two into my old
m . . .
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.. < chapter lxvi 2 THE SHARK MASSACRE >
When in the Southern Fishery, a
captured Sperm Whale, after long and weary toil, is brought alongside late at
night, it is not, as a general thing at least, customary to proceed at once
to the business of cutting him in. For that business is an exceedingly
laborious one; is not very soon completed; and requires all hands to set
about it. Therefore, the common usage is to take in all sail; lash the helm
a'lee; and then send every one below to his hammock till daylight, with the
reservation that, until that time, anchor-watches shall be kept; that is,
two and two for an hour, each couple, the crew in rotation shall mount the
deck to see that all goes well. But sometimes, especially upon the Line in the
Pacific, this plan will not answer at all; because such incalculable hosts
of sharks gather round the moored carcase, that were he left so for six
hours, say, on a stretch, little more than the skeleton would be visible by
morning. In mos . . .
