Books by Herman Melville
“This volume of short fiction includes three of Melville’s most widely-read works…The short fiction features more narrative economy and unity without sacrificing Melville’s still-dazzlingly ornate prose. What I especially love about these stories is how tricksy and untrustworthy the narrators are” Read more...
The Best Herman Melville Books
Hester Blum, Literary Scholar
“Pierre is so bananas that a contemporary reviewer’s headline read HERMAN MELVILLE CRAZY…But I could not love the novel more: it’s so densely, perversely strange, so elaborately, bombastically contrarian.” Read more...
The Best Herman Melville Books
Hester Blum, Literary Scholar
“It’s a clear classic … it stands on its own as simply a classic piece of literature about the war between duty and morality.” Read more...
Scott Turow, Thriller and Crime Writer
“I read Moby-Dick about 13 years ago, way before I started to write naval fiction. I read it because I really like the film Jaws, and the main character in that was based on Ahab in Moby-Dick. I read it and I just really, really liked it. Moby-Dick was the book that really started my love of sea stories. It’s about crews at the extreme facing quite formidable forces and seeing how they behave in those situations. I like the way the sea is treated as a character all the way through the book, even before they get on board the ship. The sea is prevalent in everything, this ominous force in the background. I like the characters and the different dynamics between them. Starbuck, the first mate, is maybe my favorite fictional character of all time.” Read more...
The Best Naval Historical Fiction
Katie Daysh, Novelist
Interviews where books by Herman Melville were recommended
The Best Naval Historical Fiction, recommended by Katie Daysh
Whether based on fact or fiction, novels set aboard ships can make for some of the best stories around. Novelist Katie Daysh, author of A Merciful Sea, introduces us to five of her favourites from the classic American novel that inspired Jaws to a horror story set aboard a U-boat in World War I.
Public Domain Books
Public domain books are books on which the copyright has expired, which means they are often available for free on the internet. Copyright rules vary by country, but some of the classics of literature were written more than a century ago and are now in the public domain.
The Best 19th-Century American Novels, recommended by Nathan Wolff
In the novels of the 19th century, the United States comes alive with all its contradictions and complications. Nathan Wolff, a professor of English at Tufts and author of Not Quite Hope and Other Political Emotions in the Gilded Age, introduces us to his picks of the best 19th-century American novels, including two works of historical fiction and a memoir that influenced the novel form.
The Great American Novel, recommended by Lawrence Buell
Albeit an object of satire and overreach, the ‘Great American Novel’ remains a vital concept in American literature, encouraging writers to capture the essence of national culture and history, argues Lawrence Buell, Professor of American Literature Emeritus at Harvard University. He talks us through the origins of the phrase and nominates five novels as contenders.
The Best Herman Melville Books, recommended by Hester Blum
Today it is celebrated as one of America’s great novels, but when it came out, Moby-Dick was received with little acclaim and none of the commercial success of Herman Melville’s first book, Typee. Here, Hester Blum, Professor of English at Penn State, introduces the 19th century American novelist and recommends which books to read by and about him.
The Best Philosophical Novels, recommended by Rebecca Goldstein
The skills of a philosopher and those of a novelist are often in tension, but they have much to learn from each other, says novelist and philosopher Rebecca Newberger Goldstein. She chooses her favourite philosophical novels.
The best books on The Sea, recommended by Philip Marsden
The travel writer casts his net over books about the sea and comes up with a haul including Moby Dick and a naval history of Britain.
The best books on Saving the World, recommended by Jonathon Porritt
Co-founder of Forum For The Future and one of the leading experts on climate change hammers home the need to encourage sustainable development technologies across the globe
The best books on Evil, recommended by Adam Haslett
Bestselling author, Adam Haslett, defines the existential origin of evil as the refusal to acknowledge and confront our own mortality. He picks the best books on evil.
The Best Legal Novels, recommended by Scott Turow
Great novels about the law have always been an inspiration to lawyers, bringing home the problems of the law, the human mess that it tries unsuccessfully to make sense of, and the gulf that can exist between the law and justice. Scott Turow, the bestselling author of Presumed Innocent, talks to us about his own favourite legal novels, from a classic set on aboard a Royal Navy ship during the Napoleonic wars to a murder trial in the Pacific Northwest after World War II.
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Return of the Native (Illustrated)
by Clare Leighton (illustrator) & Thomas Hardy -
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Moby Dick (Illustrated)
by Herman Melville & Rockwell Kent (illustrator) -
3
Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights (Illustrated)
by Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë & Fritz Eichenberg (illustrator) -
4
Persuasion (Illustrated)
by Jane Austen & Joan Hassall (illustrator)
The Best Illustrated Novels, recommended by Rosalind Parry
The Best Illustrated Novels, recommended by Rosalind Parry
The craze of the 1930s and 1940s was for beautifully illustrated editions of the great Victorian novels, affordably priced to take pride of place in a middle-class home. Lecturer and author Rosalind Parry recommends five outstanding editions whose illustrations are as striking as their stories.