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Arrr she blows just off the starboard bow! [Man with a sailors hat on pointing at a water spout]

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Yeah it's Moby Dick, the white whale of a novel that strikes fear into the heart

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of every student of American literature. No we're not saying the book blows just

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boy, stay with us, it's long. Let's talk a little bit about [Boy looking scared peaking over the Moby Dick book]

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the man behind this monstrous mammal. Herman Melville was born in New York [Man riding a whale]

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City in 1819, his mother Maria was very strict when it came to religion and she [Boy being forced to read the bible]

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made sure that Herman had close encounters of the biblical kind

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throughout his childhood. Herman's father Alan died of a cold gone [Man sneezes and dies]

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wrong when Herman was a preteen. Well in 1839 after years spent watching his

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family's finances seesaw Herman went to sea he sailed on a whaling ship and ['Family money' seesaw going backwards and forwards]

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spen't some quality time on an island inhabited by cannibals in French

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Polynesia. Well word to the wise, they're fun to play cards with but they don't make

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the best dinner guests. In the end Herman's experiences as a sailor gave [Man looking at chicken legs saying they look small]

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him the material he needed to become an author. While his first couple of novels [Writing on paper]

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did really well, the rest went belly-up. One of those certified duds was this [Herman Melville with money falling behind him]

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little ditty called Moby Dick, which was published in 1851.

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It sold a mere 3000 copies in the United States even Herman's pal Nathaniel

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Hawthorne hated the tale and Herman had dedicated the book to him. (Laughs) Sick burn...

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Things got worse for Herman you can believe it, he became close personal [Herman's face spinning down a black hole]

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friends with a variety of alcoholic beverages, yeah Captain Morgan we

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hear was his best buddy... Well both of Herman's sons died as well [Herman's sons gravestones]

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and then every book he wrote... bombed... and while he was able to make a living for [The rest of Herman's books explode]

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nearly two decades as the only honest customs inspector in New York City, [Herman turns away bribe money]

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well he died has been. But his legacy had a turn around in the 20th century a [Herman's gravestone]

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little too late to do him any good but all of a sudden critics realized that

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Moby Dick wasn't just an extremely long and crazy story about a whale or at [Sophisticated looking man holding Moby Dick with one hand and his glasses with the other]

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least it wasn't just an extremely long and crazy story about a whale... Rather [Man reading Moby Dick by a fire]

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Moby Dick was Herman's meditation on life, the universe and everything. So put [Girl reading Moby Dick looks shocked in realisation]

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on your galoshes and ready your harpoons it's time to set sail me hearties! [Man fishing in a small boat is crushed by a whale]

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