Moby-Dick

Name: Moby-Dick
Brand: Penguin Random House UK
Availability: InStock
Author: Herman Melville
ISBN: 9780718198282

Author: Herman Melville

Series: Penguin English Library

Narrator: William Hootkins

Abridged: 6 hr 2 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 04/26/2012

Categories: Fiction, Classic

Synopsis

Penguin Classics presents Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, adapted for audio and available as a digital download as part of the Penguin English Library series. Read by the actor William Hootkins.

'The frail gunwales bent in, collapsed, and snapped, as both jaws, like an enormous shears, sliding further aft, bit the craft completely in twain...'

Moby-Dick is one of the most expansive feats of imagination in the whole of literature: the mad, raging, Shakespearean tale of Captain Ahab's insane quest to kill a giant white whale that has taken his leg, and upon which he has sworn vengeance, at any cost. A creation unlike any other, this is an epic story of fatal monomania and the deepest dreams and obsessions of mankind.

Part of a series of vintage recordings taken from the Penguin Archives. Affordable, collectable, quality productions - perfect for on-the-go listening.

About Herman Melville

Herman Melville (1819–1891) was an American novelist, short-story writer, essayist, and poet who is often classified as part of dark romanticism. He is best known for his novel Moby Dick and novella Billy Budd, the latter which was published posthumously. His first three books gained much attention, the first becoming a bestseller, but after a fast-blooming literary success in the late 1840s, his popularity declined precipitously in the mid-1850s and never recovered during his lifetime. When he died, he was almost completely forgotten. It was not until the "Melville Revival" in the early twentieth century that his work won recognition, most notably Moby Dick, which was hailed as one of the chief literary masterpieces of both American and world literature.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Michael on January 02, 2023

QUICK UPDATE: James Cameron totally ripped off and plagiarized Melville in the abysmally written Avatar 2. He should have listed Moby Dick in the credits…(view spoiler)[and saved the Ishmael character - the biologist - but, alas, he didn’t. (hide spoiler)] I re-read Moby-Dick following my research trips to the whaling museums of......more

Goodreads review by Vit on February 09, 2024

The narrator of this flabbergasting marine saga is an impecunious but very erudite young man possessing a sarcastic sense of humour and having a tongue-in-cheek attitude to life… Call me Ishmael. Some years ago – never mind how long precisely – having little or no money in my purse, and nothing parti......more

Goodreads review by Federico on April 22, 2024

Dude, let it go already! Massachusetts, 1830s. Ishmael is a young mariner spending time at a local inn, resting from his last sea voyage. When the lure of the seas calls again he signs up to join the crew of the Pequod, a whaler ship leaving dock soon. In charge of the expedition, the implacable A......more

Goodreads review by s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] on May 29, 2025

Love it or hate it, whenever someone asks if Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick is worth reading and, yes, I always enthusiastically say yes you should, yes it's worth it, yes, yes like some weirdass library Molly Bloom. An epic seafaring quest—one that is a prime example of how a major theme in literature......more

Goodreads review by karen on June 25, 2018

i tried. Both ends of the line are exposed; the lower end terminating in an eye-splice or loop coming up from the bottom against the side of the tub, and hanging over its edge completely disengaged from everything. This arrangement of the lower end is necessary on two accounts. First: In order to fac......more