This is one of Routledge’s more recent instalments in a series which seeks to contextualise key literary texts. This specific sourcebook looks at Moby-Dick; or The Whale, first published in 1851 and written by Herman Melville (1819 – 1891). It is meant for the first-time reader of Melville’s text, but is also intentionally accessible to a range of student ages from school to undergraduate level. Through its less orthodox avenues, presenting the reader with a staggering amount of contemporary reviews, criticism, and context, this sourcebook has much higher aims than most other student ‘guides’ to literary texts. Unfortunately, this does have a slightly detrimental effect: some of the critical essays picked were, quite clearly, originally written for a scholarly audience, possessing language which is therefore outside the grasp of some students (‘the Melville of Moby-Dick discerns in Jefferson’s two arch-principles of inalienable rights and consent an unresolved tension’). However this greater degree of sophistication, coupled with the presentation of the sourcebook as a sometimes Reader - down to giving a brief contextual overview of each critical essay - means that it also serves as an excellent preliminary resource for both the academic and the scholar. As a consequence, however, the aims of the sourcebook are slightly contradictory, presenting itself as a legitimate and necessary read to audiences with conflicting requirements. Nonetheless, although a text of this length could never expect to be an over-arching authority, what is here is concise, interesting, and extremely informative for all readers.

The sourcebook is a fresh and inviting look at an otherwise well-studied and frequently cited literary text, drawing together a slightly paradigmatic but nonetheless much-needed set of contextual apparatus. Thus it is divided into four obvious parts: contexts, interpretations (which provide the reader with early and ‘modern’ criticism), key passages from Moby-Dick, and suggested further reading. The section on contexts is a very patient and accumulative look at surrounding historical issues, from America’s antebellum period to documents which highlight Melville’s struggle to write Moby-Dick. The critical essays are just varied enough to give a taste of the shift in perceptions and literary preoccupations of the twentieth-century (a ‘narrative history’ as Davey calls it), providing the reader with extracts designed to prompt one into further reading, not do all the work by re-printing entire essays (Davey has pre-empted one potential problem by ensuring that all extracts, including those from the earliest date of 1919, are still in print today). My only major concern with the scope of the modern criticism is that it stops short at 1998: this silently suggests – incorrectly - that critical attention has recently turned to other areas of American studies, shunning a text which Routledge otherwise calls ‘central’ and ‘powerful’. The section on key passages is a predictable way of approaching student-orientated guides – it is here that the more advanced reader may wince, but will perhaps feel comforted by Davey’s assurances that the passages ‘have been selected because […] critics have returned to [them] time and again when discussing Moby-Dick no matter what the discussion or methodology.’ The further reading gives a varied and annotated account of the available publishings on both Melville and Moby-Dick, although, once again, some of Davey’s comments are at odds with the more specific intentions of the series, as the sources cited give frequent indications that, upon compilation, Davies predominantly had in mind academics, scholars, and the more advanced students.

This is an exciting text crammed with useful sources and information, even finding room for Melville’s own voice through letters to his peers, and would not be out of place on the bookshelf of any reader recently acquainted with Moby-Dick, from the student to the literary scholar.