In Search of Moby Dick

Melville's classic Moby-Dick immortalized the idea of a mammoth sperm whale roaming the seas, wreaking havoc on all that crossed its path. But could such a creature exist, then or now? To find out, historian and adventurer Tim Severin travels to Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas Archipelago, where the twenty-one-year-old Melville deserted his whaling ship in 1842 and began to cobble together the legends, tall tales, sea lore and first-hand accounts from the local whalers. It is here that Severin begins to perceive the lush weave of fact and fiction, actual experience and extravagant yarn, which became Moby Dick.