Bøger af Herman Melville

KALD MIG ISMAEL. For nogle år siden - det kan være lige meget hvor mange - havde jeg få eller ingen penge i min pung og ikke noget særligt, der optog mig på landjorden. Jeg fik derfor den idé at sejle lidt rundt og se den del af verden, som er vand. På den måde forjager jeg min humørsyge og holder blodomløbet i gang. Når jeg kan mærke, at jeg er ved at få et dystert drag om munden, når det er regnvåd november i min sjæl, når jeg uvilkårligt standser op foran ligkistemagasiner og slutter mig til ethvert ligtog, jeg træffer på, og især når mit tungsind får sådan et tag i mig, at det kræver en stærk moral ikke med fuldt overlæg at gå ud på gaden og systematisk slå hatten af folk - ja, da finder jeg det på høje tid snarest at stikke til søs."Moby Dick" er den amerikanske kultklassiker af forfatteren Herman Melville. Bogen handler om sømanden Ishmael, der får hyre på hvalfangerbåden The Peqoud, som ledes af den gale kaptajn Ahab. Ahab er besat af den gigantiske, hvide hval, Moby Dick, og hans higen efter at få ram på det voldsomme dyr sætter alles liv i fare. ANMELDERNE SKREV"Den nye danske oversættelse af Herman Melvilles " Moby Dick" viser med al tydelighed, hvorfor romanen er et højdepunkt i verdenslitteraturen (...) Ismael er virkelig en helt særlig skikkelse, som man bør unde sig selv at møde mindst en gang i sit liv."- Kristeligt Dagblad"Melvilles skildring af fanatismens og galskabens anatomi er eminent, og selv om kompositionen af romanen kan virke uoverskuelig og strittende, da skyder plottet hurtigt en harpun i læseren og trækker ham ind i en langsomt, men støt, accelererende malstrøm (...) således ser en perfekt klassikeroversættelse ud!"- 6 stjerner, Berlingske

”Moby Dick er en invitation til at stirre ned i afgrunden, ikke kun den, der gemmer sig på bunden af menneskesjælen, men frem for alt den Marianergrav, hvor naturen nægter at afsløre sine hemmeligheder, og der kun er al menings fravær at se,” skriver Carsten Jensen i sit forord.HERMAN MELVILLE blev født i New York i 1819 og udgav i årene fra 1846 til 1857 ni romaner og en novellesamling. Men efter hans første succes med to selvbiografiske romaner om missionærer og menneskeædere i Polynesien blev Moby Dick en økonomisk og litterær fiasko, og endnu værre gik det romanen Pierre, der stred mod samtidens moralske værdier og gav anledning til en storm af forargelse. Fra 1866 til 1886 arbejdede Herman Melville som toldinspektør i New York. Glemt af offentligheden døde han i 1891, men i 1924 udkom for første gang den lille efterladte roman Billy Budd, som betød, at han blev genopdaget og genudgivet. I dag betragtes han som den betydeligste amerikanske forfatter nogensinde og Moby Dick og Billy Budd som hovedværker i verdenslitteraturen.FLEMMING CHR. NIELSEN (f. 1943), forfatter og oversætter, har skrevet biografien Ind i verdens vrimmel om Søren Kierkegaards storebror, der stak af til Amerika; desuden romaner samt erindringsbogen Nu er der vel ikke mere?

With an Introduction and Notes by David Herd, Lecturer in English and American Literature at the University of Kent at Canterbury and co-editor of 'Poetry Review'.Moby Dick is the story of Captain Ahab's quest to avenge the whale that 'reaped' his leg. The quest is an obsession and the novel is a diabolical study of how a man becomes a fanatic.But it is also a hymn to democracy. Bent as the crew is on Ahab's appalling crusade, it is equally the image of a co-operative community at work: all hands dependent on all hands, each individual responsible for the security of each.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.

'Call me Ishmael.' So begins the author's masterpiece, one of the greatest works of imagination in literary history. As Ishmael is drawn into Captain Ahab's obsessive quest to slay the white whale Moby-Dick, he finds himself engaged in a metaphysical struggle between good and evil.

American writer Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick in 1851 but it took decades before finally it was regarded as a great American novel, and worthy of its place amongst the greatest texts of humankind. This edition offers a specially written introduction to contextualise the book.

With an essay by Alfred Kazin.'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.The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.

Den dramatiske fortælling om drengen Ismael og den hvide dræberhval ’Moby Dick’ er en af verdenslitteraturens helt store klassikere. Ismael drømmer om at blive hvalfanger og får arbejde på kaptajn Akabs skib The Pequod. Akab har mistet sit ene ben i kamp med den hvide hval og er nu besat af tanken om hævn. Hans vanvittige jagt på det farlige dyr bliver en kamp på liv og død, der bringer hele besætningen i fare.Herman Melville (1819-1891) var en amerikansk forfatter, hvis bøger bygger på hans egne erfaringer som sømand. I dag er Herman Melville verdensberømt for sin roman "Moby Dick", men i sin samtid blev romanen dårligt modtaget og hurtigt glemt igen. Først mange år efter Herman Melvilles død blev "Moby Dick" genopdaget og regnes i dag i blandt de allerstørste klassikere i den amerikanske litteratur.

Herman Melvilles mesterværk om kaptajn Ahabs jagt på den hvide hval behøver ikke mange ord med på vejen. Her er den i den originale engelske udgave.

Part of Alma Classics Evergreens series of popular classics, this edition is thoroughly edited and extensively annotated, features an insightful foreword by Jay Parini and includes pictures and a comprehensive section on Melville's life and works.

Bestsellerforfatteren Stephen King har skarpsindigt påpeget, at hvis Herman Melvilles fortælling om skriveren Bartleby havde været hundrede sider længere, ville den og ikke Mark Twains Huckleberry Finn fra 1884 være blevet den første moderne, amerikanske roman.Herman Melvilles absurd-humoristiske fortælling om den anonyme funktionær, som pludselig en dag nægter at efterkomme sin arbejdsgivers anmodninger med den udødelige replik “Jeg vil helst ikke …”, er den ene af to amerikanske klassikere, der er indeholdt i Flemming Chr. Nielsens syvende bind af Herman Melvilleoversættelser.I bogen er også mesterværket ‘Billy Budd’ om et justitsmord ombord på et amerikansk krigsskib. Den korte roman, som udkom posthumt i 1924, var med til at cementere Moby Dick-forfatterens status som USA’s svar på såvel Shakespeare som Franz Kafka.‘Veranda-fortællinger,’ som var Herman Melvilles eneste novellesamling, indeholder seks fortællinger, heriblandt den gotiske hav-gyser ‘Benito Cereno’ om et oprør på et slaveskib og ‘Encantadas’ – Herman Melvilles vilde og poetiske skrøner fra de golde Galápagos-øer.

Moby-Dick eller Hvalen er Melvilles store verdensklassiker om kaptajn Akabs kamp mod den hvide hval. Herman Melville (1819-1891), født i New York. Efter en række forskellige job stak han til søs som tyveårig og rejste verden rundt på forskellige skibe, bl.a. i en periode på hvalskibet Acushnet. Som femogtyveårig vendte han tilbage til USA og begyndte at skrive romaner. Han fik hurtigt et stort publikum, men da han i 1851 udgav romanen Moby-Dick, svandt populariteten ind. I 1866 blev han toldinspektør i New York, og de sidste år af sit liv levede han i fuldstændig glemsel. I 1920´erne blev Melville imidlertid genopdaget, og i dag regnes Moby-Dick for et af de vigtigste værker i det nittende århundredes litteratur.

The sailor Ishmael gets employed at the whaling ship The Pequod, which is steered by the eccentric captain Ahab. The captain is obsessed with the giant white whale Moby Dick and his mad hunt on the dangerous animal brings all the crew’s lives in danger.Herman Melville (1819-1891) was an American author whose books were based on his own experiences as a sailor. Today Herman Melville is world famous for his novel "Moby Dick" but in his time the novel was ill received and quickly forgotten. Not until many years after Herman Melville's death did "Moby Dick" get rediscovered and today it is considered one of the greatest classics in American literature.

A sailor called Ishmael narrates the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaler Pequod, for revenge on Moby Dick, a white whale which on a previous voyage destroyed Ahab's ship and severed his leg at the knee.

A new selection of Melville's most electrifying stories, in a beautiful Pushkin Collection edition'Some of the most brilliant stories of his or any other century' Philip Hoare, author of LeviathanHerman Melville produced some of the most singular, enigmatic stories in American literature. From surreally funny tales of office life to claustrophobic accounts of obscure tensions at sea, his darkly modern sensibility produced works of unparalleled narrative inventiveness.A lawyer hires a new copyist, who begins to exhibit a strange, confounding resistance to work. A cynical lightning-rod salesman plies his trade by exploiting fears in stormy weather. After boarding a beleaguered Spanish slave ship, a cheerful American trader is repeatedly struck by paralyzing unease as figures move in the shadows. These are stories of unsettling ironies and absurd humour, where nothing is as it first appears.

For this Sesquicentennial Norton Critical Edition, the Northwestern-Newberry text of Moby-Dick has been generously footnoted to include dozens of biographical discoveries, mainly from Hershel Parker's work on his two-volume biography of Melville.

Teeming with ideas and imagery, and with its extraordinary intensity sustained by mischievous irony and moments of exquisite beauty, Moby-Dick is both a great American epic and a profoundly imaginative literary creation.Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition features an afterword by Nigel Cliff.On board the whaling ship Pequod a crew of wise men and fools, renegades and seeming phantoms is hurled through treacherous seas by crazed Captain Ahab, a man hell-bent on hunting down the mythic White Whale. Herman Melville transforms the little world of the whale ship into a crucible where mankind's fears, faith and frailties are pitted against a relentless fate.

From A to Z, the Penguin Drop Caps series collects 26 unique hardcovers—featuring cover art by Jessica HischeIt all begins with a letter. Fall in love with Penguin Drop Caps, a new series of twenty-six collectible and hardcover editions, each with a type cover showcasing a gorgeously illustrated letter of the alphabet. In a design collaboration between Jessica Hische and Penguin Art Director Paul Buckley, the series features unique cover art by Hische, a superstar in the world of type design and illustration, whose work has appeared everywhere from Tiffany & Co. to Wes Anderson's recent film Moonrise Kingdom to Penguin's own bestsellers Committed and Rules of Civility. With exclusive designs that have never before appeared on Hische's hugely popular Daily Drop Cap blog, the Penguin Drop Caps series debuted with an 'A' for Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, a 'B' for Charlotte Brönte's Jane Eyre, and a 'C' for Willa Cather's My Ántonia. It continues with more perennial classics, perfect to give as elegant gifts or to showcase on your own shelves.M is for Melville, who wrote of his masterpiece, "It is the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships' cables and hawsers. A Polar wind blows through it, and birds of prey hover over it." In part, Moby-Dick is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. But more than just a novel of adventure, more than an encyclopedia of whaling lore and legend, Moby-Dick is a haunting, mesmerizing, and important social commentary populated with several of the most unforgettable and enduring characters in literature. Written with wonderfully redemptive humor, Moby-Dick is a profound and timeless inquiry into character, faith, and the nature of perception.

Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street is a short story written by the American author Herman Melville. It was first published anonymously in two parts in the November and December 1853 issues of Putnam's Magazine. This enigmatic novella is a timeless tale of isolation and defiance in the heart of New York City. Bartleby, a quiet, passive scrivener, refuses to conform to societal norms, challenging the very fabric of the rigidly structured Wall Street world. Through its profound exploration of individual agency and the complexities of human interaction, Melville's masterpiece continues to captivate readers, inviting contemplation on the nature of autonomy, compassion and the inherent contradictions of modern existence.

'Struck dead by an angel of God! Yet the angel must hang!' Outwardly a compelling narrative of events aboard a British man-of-war during the turmoil of the Napoleonic Wars, Billy Budd is a nautical recasting of the Fall, a parable of good and evil, a meditation on justice and political governance, and a searching portrait of three extraordinary men. The passion it has aroused in its readers over the years is a measure of how deeply it addresses some of the fundamental questions of experience that every age must reexamine for itself. This edition draws on a new authoritative edition of Billy Budd, Sailor, which corrects the inaccuracies and excesses of former editions of Melville's notoriously incomplete final novella. Accompanied by extensive critical apparatus that draws on a wealth of recent Melville scholarship which highlights his contemporary relevance for questions of economics, ecology, identity, and sexuality and connects it to the key formal and interpretive issues at stake in understanding his art of fiction. It also includes a selection of Melville's short stories, as well as his review of Hawthorne's short fiction, 'Hawthorne and His Mosses'. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

"Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War" by Herman Melville is a poignant and introspective exploration of the American Civil War. Published in 1866, this collection of poems showcases Melville's ability to grapple with the complexities of war, human conflict, and the profound impact of historical events on the collective consciousness. Melville, best known for his novel "Moby-Dick," shifts his literary focus to the battlefield, offering readers a poetic panorama that captures the multifaceted nature of the Civil War. The collection is not a glorification of war but a nuanced examination of its various facets-its brutality, its impact on individuals, and its implications for a nation torn apart. The poems within "Battle-Pieces" serve as lyrical vignettes, each offering a unique perspective on the war's unfolding drama. Melville employs a range of poetic forms and styles to convey the emotional weight of the conflict, from solemn elegies for fallen soldiers to reflections on the moral and existential questions raised by war.

The novel Moby Dick, or, the Whale (1851) by Herman Melville is a classic tale of the voyage of the whaling ship, Pequod and its captain, Ahab, who relentlessly pursues a sperm whale called Moby Dick around the world. Narrated from the perspective of Ishmael, the book tells the story of Ahab's madness and obsessiveness with his hunting pursuit. A novel of adventure and a treatise on whaling, the book is also the author's lifelong meditation on America, brilliantly put together in a peculiar style with dark humour."To convey an adequate idea of a book of such various merits as that which the author of Typee and Omoo has here placed before the reading public is impossible in the scope of a review. High philosophy, liberal feeling, abstruse metaphysics popularly phrased, soaring speculation, a style as many-coloured as the theme, yet always good, and often admirable; fertile fancy, ingenious construction, playful learning, and an unusual power of enchaining the interest, and rising to the verge of the sublime, without overpassing that narrow boundary which plunges the ambitious penman into the ridiculous; all these are possessed by Herman Melville, and exemplified in these volumes."-London Morning Advertiser, October 24, 1851

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