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“Nantucket! Take out your map and look at it. See what a real corner of the world it occupies; how it stands there, away off shore, more lonely than the Eddystone lighthouse. Look at it—a mere hillock, and elbow of sand; all beach, without a background.” ~Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Herman Melville wrote his classic novel Moby-Dick (1851) without having visited the island of Nantucket. The island and its whaling history form the backbone of his novel, and indeed are central symbols in the epic journey of the Pequod in its hunt for Moby-Dick, the white whale. Melville based the essentials of his plot, and the final climactic ramming of the Pequod, upon all that he had read about Nantucket’s whaling industry, and in particular, the gruesome tale of the Nantucket whaleship Essex. After the publication of Moby-Dick, Melville finally visited the island, and met face-to-face with Captain George Pollard Jr., the captain who survived one of the most harrowing ordeals at sea in human history.

https://nha.org/research/nantucket-history/history-topics/herman-melville-and-nantucket/

In one brief chapter of Moby-Dick (1851), Chapter Fourteen, “Nantucket,” Melville wrote the definitive passage about the island without ever having visited its sandy soil: “Nantucket! Take out your map and look at it. See what a real corner of the world it occupies; how it stands there, away off shore, more lonely than the Eddystone lighthouse. Look at it—a mere hillock, and elbow of sand; all beach, without a background.” Nantucket in a nutshell: a pile of sand, a glacial afterthought, but also a “corner of the world,” connected and connecting the small with the vast, an insignificant nothing that is part of the main.


Nantucket is a very unique place in the world, it offers magical light and unimaginable air and wonderful landscape.

From about 1700 to the 1840s Nantucket was considered the whaling capital of the world. This “gray lady of the sea” was also notably referenced in Melville’s Moby Dick. However, it was neither the promise of whale oil nor Melville’s nod that drew our class to its shores recently. Nantucket is also known to have the finest surviving architectural examples of late 18th century American architecture. We went to learn and work on these historic structures using the traditional masonry techniques that were employed at their inception.
2009 FAA077 SEAMANS LIGHT2009 FAA078 LITTLE CAPE LIGHT2009 FAA083 NANTUCKET TRANSPORTATION2009 FAA084 ROUGH SEAS2009 FAA085 GOTHIC WINDOW2009 FAA085 GOTHIC WINDOW2009 FAA086 SETTING SAIL2009 FAA087 DREAM HOME2009 FAA088 NANTUCKET BLUFF2009 FAA089 NANTUCKET SOUND2009 FAA090 CARVED ENTRY2009 FAA090 CARVED ENTRY2009 FAA091 HISTORIC NANTUCKET2009 FAA092 NANTUCKET TEXTURE2009 FAA093 ISLAND MOSS2009 FAA094 HITCHING NANTUCKET2009 FAA095 STARFISH WISH2009 FAA096 SIMPLY NANTUCKET2009 FAA097 VIEW FROM THE FERRY2009 FAA098 TROLLING

Categories & Keywords
Category:Travel and Places
Subcategory:North America
Subcategory Detail:United States of America
Keywords:antiques, basket, beach, bicycle, bike, blue, bluff, boat, cape, cobblestone, cod, cycle, door, entry, ferry, flower, harbor, historic, history, hitch, hitching, home, house, island, massachusetts, mermaids, nantucket, ocean, october, pane, pine, pink, post, pumpkin, red, ride, rough, sail, seas, sign, signage, six, texture, transporation, tree, vane, vase, weather, welcome, wind, window, yacht