Moby Dick

Description

Among the crew is Ishmael, the novel's narrator, ordinary sailor, and extraordinary reader. Digressive, allusive, vulgar, transcendent, the story Ishmael tells is above all an education: in the practice of whaling, in the art of writing. Expanding to equal his 'mighty theme' - not only the whale but all things sublime - Melville breathes in the world's great literature. Moby Dick is the greatest novel ever written by an American.

Herman Melville (1 August 1819 - 28 September 1891) was an American author best known for his book, Moby Dick. The Scottish novelist and academic MARGARET ELPHINSTONE's first novel was published in 1987. Her latest, The Gathering Night, was published in 2009. She is Emeritus Professor of Scottish Literature at Strathclyde University in Glasgow. Apart from spells of academic work in the USA, she has spent most of her working life in various parts of Scotland including Shetland, Edinburgh and Glasgow.