Project Gutenberg #15
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
Herman Melville
1851Melville's seafaring epic, prepared chapter by chapter from Project Gutenberg HTML.
Project Gutenberg #15 Public domain in the United States Cover source Local typographic cover created for MojiMori from public-domain source metadata
Section 1 of 140
ETYMOLOGY.
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AI Summary
Chapter 1 — ETYMOLOGY. Central question What sort of book is this going to be? Main argument The prefatory etymology frames the whale as a word, a cultural object, and a problem of naming before it becomes a plot...
(SUPPLIED BY A LATE CONSUMPTIVE USHER TO A GRAMMAR SCHOOL.)
The pale Usher—threadbare in coat, heart, body, and brain; I see him now. He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars, with a queer handkerchief, mockingly embellished with all the gay flags of all the known nations of the world. He loved to dust his old grammars; it somehow mildly reminded him of his mortality.