Leviathan

Leviathan
Philip Hoare

This edition does not include illustrations.The story of a man’s obsession with whales, which takes him on a personal, historical and biographical journey – from his childhood to his fascination with Moby-Dick and his excursions whale-watching.All his life, Philip Hoare has been obsessed by whales, from the gigantic skeletons in London’s Natural History Museum to adult encounters with the wild animals themselves. Whales have a mythical quality – they seem to elide with dark fantasies of sea-serpents and antediluvian monsters that swim in our collective unconscious.In ‘Leviathan’, Philip Hoare seeks to locate and identify this obsession. What impelled Melville to write ‘Moby-Dick’? After his book in 1851, no one saw whales in quite the same way again.This book is an investigation into what we know little about – dark, shadowy creatures who swim below the depths, only to surface in a spray of spume. More than the story of the whale, it is also the story of our own obsessions.

LEVIATHAN

or,

The Whale

Philip Hoare

Copyright (#u5c774a7f-4c93-546c-87e6-bc74d37a1947)

Fourth Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/)

First published in Great Britain in 2008 by Fourth Estate

Copyright © Philip Hoare 2008

Philip Hoare asserts the moral right o be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007230143

Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2009 ISBN: 9780007340910

Version: 2017-01-04

For Theresa

Contents

Title Page (#ucb1d6ea2-a7f0-5778-9f78-4b94c3f94529)

Copyright (#u37834e10-f3f1-593f-bf39-cdd2923e8329)

Dedication (#u4f22def9-cf15-52f1-b739-16e6473fea11)

Prologue (#u28d7bd9b-28f2-576a-b67b-4782572e98db)

I Soundings (#u3741be7d-828a-5311-829c-856e831c7edf)

II The Passage Out (#u5beb0da5-f600-5fff-b6a5-f919dbb2bf48)

III The Sperm Whale (#u36dab73c-488a-5227-a3c8-7fe006c3d174)

IV A Filthy Enactment (#uc198ca75-06c9-5498-9066-5f1b2d68caa8)

V Far Away Land (#litres_trial_promo)

VI Sealed Orders (#litres_trial_promo)

VII The Divine Magnet (#litres_trial_promo)

VIII Very Like a Whale (#litres_trial_promo)

IX The Correct Use of Whales (#litres_trial_promo)

X The Whiteness of the Whale (#litres_trial_promo)

XI The Melancholy Whale (#litres_trial_promo)

XII A Cold War for the Whale (#litres_trial_promo)

XIII The Whale Watch (#litres_trial_promo)

XIV The Ends of the Earth (#litres_trial_promo)

XV The Chase (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)

Bibliography (#litres_trial_promo)

Picture Credits (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

Index (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by Philip Hoare (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

There Leviathan, Hugest of living creatures, on the deepStretch’d like a promontory sleeps or swims, And seems a moving land; and at his gills Draws in, and at his breath spouts out a sea.

John Milton, Paradise Lost, quoted in title page to the first, English edition of Moby-Dick

Prologue (#u5c774a7f-4c93-546c-87e6-bc74d37a1947)