Herman Melville (181991) was an American writer and sailor, whose work and fate surprisingly organically melted the experience of the traveler and the mythopoetic worldview of the artist. The realization of the magnitude of Melville’s talent did not come immediately, and only a quarter of a century after the writer’s death, the outlines of the enormous contribution he made to the treasury of world literature began to be seen. Melville's central work - the grandiose novel Moby Dick, or the White Whale - became one of the peaks of American literature, finally depriving America of the status of a "cultural desert" In this edition, the text of the novel is accompanied by illustrations by the famous artist Anton Lomaev .. Translation and notes by Inna Maximovna Bernstein .