Moby-Dick

He demonstrated how the frontier wasn’t an incubator of democratic equality but a place of unrelenting pain, cruelty, and suffering.

For Herman Melville, the color white could be horrifyingly bleak.

The novelist drew on far-flung voyages to create his masterpiece. But he could finish it only at his beloved Berkshire farm.

Herman Melville likely saw the panorama “Whaling Voyage,” which records the sinking of the whaler Essex, while staying in Boston in 1849.

There was little indication 166 years ago that the book would enter the canon of great American fiction.

On the trail of whales, Melville, and Douglass in New Bedford.

Dispatches from a spine-tingling day of visits to the places where James Fenimore Cooper, Herman Melville, and Thomas Cole created their most famous works.

He would point out that what plagues us are America's sins coming home to roost.

The earliest-known version of the dish was a winey, briny, bready casserole.

Recorded accidentally by the Navy during the Cold War, "Songs of the Humpback Whale" became a hit album that changed perceptions about the natural world.

Oil companies like to point to the demise of the whaling industry as an example of market-based energy solutions. The reality is much more complicated.

The 19th-century whale hunt was a brutal business. But between the frantic calls of “there she blows!”, there was plenty of time for creation too.

The city was once a bustling and infamous Great Lakes port. How should it be remembered?

Andrew Delbanco's new book positions the debate over fugitive slaves as a central factor in the nation's slide toward disunion.

The difference between the careers and reputations of the three famous authors is about gender as well as genius.

Piecing back together the forgotten history of Herman Melville's second son.

A primary source set and teaching guide created by educators.

Ross Bullen explores the curious case of Prince George Washington, a 19th-century Siamese prince.