Moby Dick

In his “Introduction” to the 1998 Oxford World’s Classic edition of Moby-Dick, Tony Tanner suggests that the novel could only have been written in America and only in the mid-nineteenth century. The country then “seemed to stand at a new height, or new edge, of triumphant dominion and expansionary confidence in the western world.” Tanner and others point out that, during Melville’s life, the United States emerged from a colonial society to a world power with its own significant history and mythology. There were also tremendous advances in technology—the development of the railroad, telegraph, and telephone enabling easier travel and communication. Democracy was on the rise, and the country was ready to produce literary voices of its own.