Moby Dick

Synopsis

With an introduction and notes by david herd, lecturer in english and american literature at the university of kent at canterbury and co-editor of ‘poetry review’. Moby dick is the story of captain ahab’s quest to avenge the whale that ‘reaped’ his leg. The quest is an obsession, and the novel is a diabolical study of how a man becomes a fanatic. But it is also a hymn to democracy. Bent as the crew is on ahab’s appalling crusade, it is equally the image of a co-operative community at work: all hands dependent on all hands, each individual responsible for the security of each.