Moby Dick (1851), Herman Melville's classic adventure novel of a sea captain who hunts his nemesis, the great white whale, Moby Dick.

Heart of Darkness (1902) by Joseph Conrad. A novella about a man, Marlow, who enters the Belgian Congo in order to find Mr. Kurtz, a Western man who has succumbed to the dark forces of the jungle, built a fortress, and generated fear among the natives for his violent, messianic ways.

"The Bear" (1935) by William Faulkner. A short story in which Ian McCaslin is initiated into adulthood through the annual hunt of Old Ben, an elusive black bear.

The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen, published in 1978. A National Book Award-winning account of the author's journey with zoologist George Schaller to the Tibetan Plateau in the Himalayan mountains in search of the elusive snow leopard. His journey leads him to the...