When Melville completed
Moby-Dick
, he wrote to Nathaniel Hawthorne that “I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as a lamb.” While it took the world some time to appreciate the magnitude of Melville’s achievement,
is now widely considered one of the greatest works of American literature. It is, however, long, and students in semester-long courses will often not have a chance to read the novel in its entirety. The Broadview
Moby-Dick: A Selection
offers a robust sampling of chapters, chosen to give students a thorough initiation into the novel’s plot, as well as into the full range of its themes and stylistic experimentation. This edition also includes substantial, clear, and helpful annotations to help students successfully navigate Melville’s language and range of references.
This volume is one of a number of editions that have been drawn from the pages of the acclaimed
Broadview Anthology of American Literature
. The series is designed to make selections from the anthology available in a format convenient for use in a wide variety of contexts; each edition features an introduction and exaplanatory footnotes, and is designed to meet the needs of today’s students.