Herman Melville Moby-Dick

Nick Selby offers a view of the critical debate about Melville's Moby Dick. The text begins with Melville's own letters and essays and the early reviews, followed by the Melville revival of the 1920s, the novel's central place in American Studies in the 1940s and 50s, and the postmodern New Americanist readings of the 1980s.