The Whale and His Captors is an important firsthand account of the golden age of American whaling, chronicling both its lore and science as practiced from the inception of the fishery to the mid-1800s. Late in the composition of Moby-Dick, Herman Melville found inspiration in Cheever and his writings that would provide the final flourishes for one of America’s classic novels. After exhausting other whaling sources—Beale, Scoresby, Bennett, and Browne—Melville turned to Cheever for chapter titles and organization as well as passages that helped shape, define, and elucidate his great work. This is the first scholarly edition of The Whale and His Captors, accompanied by an introduction and apparatus that clearly elucidates Cheever’s treatise on whaling and demonstrates how his writings contributed both to the course of American literature and to our burgeoning understanding of literature’s engagement with the natural world.
The present edition is a fascinating work, containing all the illustrations from the original 1850 text. It is particularly suited for scholars interested in American maritime studies, literary criticism, and especially Melville and his work. . . . Recommended.
Among those who preceded Herman Melville on the whaleman’s storm-tossed literary seas, the Rev. Henry T. Cheever was especially intriguing. Madison has freshly edited Cheever’s 1850 book, supplied insightful additions of their own, and brought together an array of contextual materials in a rich appendix.
Madison constructs illuminating literary and nautical contexts for this eyewitness account of life on a whaler and is especially good at tracing Cheever’s influence on Moby-Dick, as well as his changeable attitudes toward its author, Herman Melville.
Sharing new discoveries and insights, the edition’s supplementary materials contribute to ongoing scholarship by accurately contextualizing Cheever and Melville within their own time-and by illuminating their respective connections to our own.
HENRY T. CHEEVER (1814–1897) was born and educated in Maine. In the early 1840s he voyaged as a passenger on the whaling ship Commodore Preble. Cheever published The Whale and His Captors a year or two before Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick appeared in 1851. ROBERT D. MADISON is professor of English at the U.S. Naval Academy and an editor of Northwestern-Newberry editions of the writings of Herman Melville.
Founded in 1971, Brandeis University Press is a nonprofit publisher dedicated to publishing innovative, high-quality books for a general audience, as well as scholarship that advances knowledge and promotes dialogue in the humanities, arts, and social sciences around the world.
© Copyright 2024, Brandeis University Press
Brandeis University Press
Goldfarb Library 69-235, MS 046
Brandeis University
415 South Street
Waltham, MA 02453
(781) 736-4547
pressinfo@brandeis.edu
Stay up to date with the newest titles and promotions from Brandeis University Press—while saving 20% on your first purchase.
