Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

9781840227611

The novel begins with a famous line: “Call me Ishmael.” Ishmael, the narrator of Moby Dick, seeks “freedom” from his life in New York City, and decides to head north to New Bedford, Massachusetts, to find a job on a whaling ship. In New Bedford, at the Spouter Inn, Ishmael meets Queequeg, a “native” man from Kokovoko, in the Pacific isles, who is trained as a harpooner on whale-ships—a man who actually hunts and catches whales. Although Ishmael is initially scared of Queequeg, the two quickly become friends, and vow to accompany each other on a ship of Ishmael’s choosing, in Nantucket.

There, Ishmael comes across a ship called the Pequod, and when he speaks to two of the boats owners, Peleg and Bildad, he realizes that the captain of the Pequod, called Ahab, is a “strange” man, possibly mad, who does not tend to associate with others. Ishmael later finds out that Ahab lost his leg to a particularly nasty whale, who bit it off; this whale is called Moby Dick, and is famous for its whiteness, its ferocity, and its inability to be caught. Despite fears of Ahab—and the harsh-sounding prophecies of a man named Elijah, who warns Ishmael and Queequeg of the captain—the two men decide to ship out on the Pequod. The ship leaves Nantucket on Christmas Day.