«SUDDENLY THE WATERS AROUND THEM SLOWLY SWELLED IN BROAD CIRCLES; THEN QUICKLY UPHEAVED, SWIFTLY RISING TO THE SURFACE. A LOW RUMBLING SOUND WAS HEARD; A SUBTERRANEOUS HUM; AND THEN ALL HELD THEIR BREATHS; AS BEDRAGGLED WITH TRAILING ROPES, AND HARPOONS, AND LANCES, A VAST FORM SHOT LENGTHWISE FROM THE SEA.».»

On board the whaling ship Pequod a crew of wise men and fools, renegades and seeming phantoms is hurled through treacherous seas by a crazed captain hell-bent on hunting down the mythic White Whale. Melville transforms the little world of the whale-ship into a crucible where mankind's fears, faith and frailties are pitted against a relentless fate. Teeming with ideas and imagery, and with its extraordinary, compressed intensity sustained by mischievous irony and moments of exquisite beauty, Moby-Dick is both a great American epic and a most profoundly imaginative literary creation.