Moby-Dick, Herman Melville's masterpiece, describes Captain Ahab's fanatical pursuit of the cunning and seemingly malign white whale Moby Dick and the ensuing battle to the death. This remarkable tale of high adventure is laced with whaling lore and philosophical, Biblical and Shakespearean resonances. Indeed, Faulkner confessed he wished he had written it himself, while, D. H. Lawrence called it "one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world."