Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, for revenge on Moby Dick, the giant white sperm whale that on the ship's previous voyage bit off Ahab's leg at the knee. A contribution to the literature of the American Renaissance, Moby-Dick was published to mixed reviews, was a commercial failure, and was out of print at the time of the author's death in 1891. Its reputation as a "Great American Novel" was established only in the 20th century, after the centennial of its author's birth. William Faulkner said he wished he had written the book himself, and D. H. Lawrence called it "one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world" and "the greatest book of the sea ever written". Its opening sentence, "Call me Ishmael", is among world literature's most famous.
Nantucket is an island about 30 miles (50 km) by ferry south from Cape Cod, in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. Together with the small islands of Tuckernuck and Muskeget, it constitutes the Town and County of Nantucket, a combined county/town government. It is the only such consolidated town-county in Massachusetts. As of the 2020 census, the population was 14,255, making it the least populated county in Massachusetts. Part of the town is designated the Nantucket CDP, or census-designated place. The region of Surfside on Nantucket is the southernmost settlement in Massachusetts.
Joan Delano Aiken was an English writer specialising in supernatural fiction and children's alternative history novels. In 1999 she was awarded an MBE for her services to children's literature. For The Whispering Mountain, published by Jonathan Cape in 1968, she won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a book award judged by a panel of British children's writers, and she was a commended runner-up for the Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British writer. She won an Edgar Allan Poe Award (1972) for Night Fall.
Ishmael is a character in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851), which opens with the line, "Call me Ishmael." He is the first person narrator in much of the book. Because Ishmael plays a minor role in the plot, early critics of Moby-Dick assumed that Captain Ahab was the protagonist. Many either confused Ishmael with Melville or overlooked the role he played. Later critics distinguished Ishmael from Melville, and some saw his mystic and speculative consciousness as the novel's central force rather than Captain Ahab's monomaniacal force of will.
Essex was an American whaler from Nantucket, Massachusetts, which was launched in 1799. In 1820, while at sea in the southern Pacific Ocean under the command of Captain George Pollard Jr., she was attacked and sunk by a sperm whale. Thousands of miles from the coast of South America with little food and water, the 20-man crew was forced to make for land in the ship's surviving whaleboats.
The Ann Alexander was a whaling ship from New Bedford, Massachusetts. She is notable for having been rammed and sunk by a wounded sperm whale in the South Pacific on August 20, 1851, some 30 years after the famous incident in which the Essex was stove in and sunk by a whale in the same area.
Pequod is a fictional 19th-century Nantucket whaling ship that appears in the 1851 novel Moby-Dick by American author Herman Melville. Pequod and her crew, commanded by Captain Ahab, are central to the story, which, after the initial chapters, takes place almost entirely aboard the ship during a three-year whaling expedition in the Atlantic, Indian and South Pacific oceans. Most of the characters in the novel are part of Pequod's crew, including the narrator Ishmael.
A custom of the sea is a custom that is said to be practiced by the officers and crew of ships and boats in the open sea, as distinguished from maritime law, which is a distinct and coherent body of law that governs maritime questions and offenses.
Black Hearts in Battersea is a children's novel by Joan Aiken first published in 1964. The second book in the Wolves Chronicles, it is loosely a sequel to her earlier Wolves of Willoughby Chase. The book is set in a slightly altered historical England—during the reign of King James III—in the early 19th century, and follows the adventures of Simon, an orphan whose plans to study painting in London are derailed by high adventure. Aiken was inspired to create an atmosphere of important events having already transpired offstage, and also included an involved "Dickensian plot" which she believed to complement the habit many children have of rereading or having a book reread to them.
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase is a children's novel by Joan Aiken, first published in 1962. Set in an alternative history of England, it tells of the adventures of cousins Bonnie and Sylvia and their friend Simon the goose-boy as they thwart the evil schemes of their governess Miss Slighcarp, and their so-called "teacher" at boarding school, Mrs. Brisket.
Sperm whaling is the hunting of the marine mammals for the oil, meat and bone that can be extracted from their bodies. Sperm whales, a large and deep-diving species, produce a waxy substance that was especially useful during the Industrial Revolution, and so they were targeted in 19th-century whaling, as exemplified in Moby Dick. Sperm oil is no longer needed, but another unusual product, ambergris, is still valued as a perfume fixative. Although the animal is classified as a vulnerable species, aboriginal whaling in limited numbers is still permitted, notably from two villages in Indonesia, for subsistence.
The Stolen Lake is a children's novel by Joan Aiken, first published in 1981. Taking place in an alternate history, the story follows the adventures of Dido Twite in a fictionalized version of South America.
Samuel Enderby & Sons was a whaling and sealing company based in London, England, founded circa 1775 by Samuel Enderby (1717–1797). The company was significant in the history of whaling in the United Kingdom, not least for encouraging their captains to combine exploration with their business activities, and sponsored several of the earliest expeditions to the subantarctic, Southern Ocean and Antarctica itself.
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase is a 1989 dark fantasy film directed by Stuart Orme with a screenplay by William M. Akers. The film was based on the 1962 novel of the same name, written by Joan Aiken.
The Cuckoo Tree is a children's novel by Joan Aiken, first published in 1971. Taking place in an alternate history, the story presents the further adventures of Dido Twite, a teenage Victorian tomboy, in southern England. The novel is chronologically the fifth of the Wolves Chronicles, a series of books set in a fictional 19th century in which the Stuart kings had not been ousted by William of Orange; a key plot driver is the efforts of "Hanoverians" to overthrow "King James III" and his heirs. The Cuckoo Tree was published before its prequel, The Stolen Lake.
Captain Ahab is a fictional character and one of the main protagonists in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851). He is the monomaniacal captain of the whaling ship Pequod. On a previous voyage, the white whale Moby Dick bit off Ahab's leg, and he now wears a prosthetic leg made out of whalebone. The whaling voyage of the Pequod ends up as a hunt for revenge on the whale, as Ahab forces the crew members to support his fanatical mission. When Moby Dick is finally sighted, Ahab's hatred robs him of all caution, and the whale drags Ahab to his death beneath the sea.
George Pollard Jr. (1791–1870) was the captain of the whalers Essex and Two Brothers, both of which sank. Pollard's life, including his encounter with the sperm whale that sank Essex, served as inspiration for Captain Ahab, the whale-obsessed character in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick.
Commercial open-boat whaling by American and European ships occurred in the Sea of Okhotsk from the 1830s to the early 1900s. They primarily caught right and bowhead whales. Both populations of these species declined drastically, with the latter once thought to be extinct by western historians. Peak catches were made in the 1840s and 1850s. It is estimated that as many as 15,200 bowheads and 2,400 rights were taken in the sea.
Commercial whaling in Britain began late in the 16th century and continued after the 1801 formation of the United Kingdom and intermittently until the middle of the 20th century.
