Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is a novel by Herman Melville, in which Ishmael narrates the monomaniacal quest of Ahab, captain of the whaler Pequod, for revenge on the albino sperm whale Moby Dick, which on a previous voyage destroyed Ahabs ship and severed his leg at the knee. Although the novel was a commercial failure and out of print at the time of the authors death in 1891, its reputation grew immensely during the twentieth century. D. H. Lawrence called it one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world, and the greatest book of the sea ever written.