Moby Dick

Herman Melville was born in New York City in 1819. When his father died, he was forced to leave school and find work. After passing through some minor clerical jobs, the eighteen-year-old young man shipped out to sea, first on a short cargo trip, then, at twenty-one, on a three-year South Sea whaling venture. From the experiences accumulated on this voyage would come the material for his early books,  Typee (1846) and  Omoo (1847), as well as for such masterpieces as  Moby-Dick (1851),  Pierre (1852),  The Piazza Tales (1856) and  Billy Budd, Sailor, and Other Stories (posthumous, 1924).