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"Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world." So begins what Hennig Cohen in Dictionary of Literary Biography called "One of the few American books recognized as a world classic," the allegorical tale of seagoing adventure and whale-hunting, Moby Dick; or, The Whale. Penning these opening lines, Herman Melville could just as easily have been describing himself instead of his narrator. As a young man of twenty-one without prospects on land, Melville too shipped out to discover the world, and in so doing discovered in himself the urge to be a writer. At sea for almost four years, Melville accumulated enough material for many novels. Also like the narrator of Moby Dick, Melville can be compared to the Biblical Ishmael, whose name has come to be synonymous with exile or outcast.
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