Detailed Reading List
The following texts were provided to participants as part of the curriculum of the Institute and as useful resources for teaching the novel to students.
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, Third Norton Critical Edition (Norton, 2017) The Third Norton Critical Edition of Moby-Dick is based on Hershel Parker’s revision of the 1967 text edited by Harrison Hayford and Hershel Parker. It includes illustrations, maps, background and source materials, contemporary reviews, and essays by Melville scholars, including Institute faculty Mary K. Bercaw Edwards, Wyn Kelley, Timothy Marr, and Robert K. Wallace. One of the great strengths of this third edition is the inclusion of commentary on Moby-Dick from its publication in 1851 right into the 21st century to investigate why Moby-Dick—boisterous, beautiful, filled with soaring language, forever questioning, and nearly 200 years old—is more popular than ever.
Herman Melville: An Introduction by Wyn Kelley (Blackwell, 2008) This unique introduction explores Herman Melville as he described himself in Billy Budd: “a writer whom few know.” Moving beyond the recurring depiction of Melville as the famous author of Moby-Dick, this book traces his development as a writer while providing the basic tools for successful critical reading of his novels. It offers a brief introduction to Melville, covering all his major works, showcases Melville’s writing process through his correspondence with Nathaniel Hawthorne, provides a clear sense of Melville’s major themes and preoccupations, focuses on Typee, Moby-Dick, and Billy Budd in individual chapters, and includes a biography, summary of key works, interpretation, commentary, and extensive bibliography.
Moby-Dick in Pictures: One Drawing for Every Page by Matt Kish (Tin House Books, 2011) More than 150 years following the original publication of Moby-Dick, Kish began illustrating Melville’s classic, creating images based on text selected from every leaf of the 552-page Signet Classics paperback edition. Completely self-taught, Kish refused to set any boundaries for the artwork and employed a deliberately low-tech approach in response to the increasing popularity of born-digital art and literature. He used found pages torn from old, discarded books, as well as a variety of mediums, including ballpoint pen, marker, paint, crayon, ink, and watercolor. By layering images on top of existing words and images, Kish has crafted a visual masterpiece that echoes the layers of meaning in Melville’s narrative and inspires teachers to open up the aesthetic potential of the text with their students.
Unpainted to the Last: Moby-Dick and Twentieth-Century American Art by Elizabeth Schultz (University Press of Kansas, 1995) Schultz interprets Melville’s text through the lens of contemporary artists who have illustrated the book in its many editions. Endlessly pursued but ever elusive, Moby-Dick roams freely throughout the American imagination. A fathomless source for literary exploration, Melville’s masterpiece has also inspired a stunning array of book illustrations, prints, comics, paintings, sculptures, mixed media, and even architectural designs. Innovative and lavishly illustrated, Unpainted to the Last illuminates this impressive body of work and shows how it opens up our understanding of both Moby-Dick and twentieth-century American art.