Moby Dick

by Margaret Elphinstone (Adaptor), Herman Melville (Creator), Katy Elphinstone (Illustrator)

Breach your last to the sun, Moby Dick! cried Ahab. Thy hour and thy harpoon are at hand! Why does Captain Ahab look like a man who s being crucified? How did he come by that hideous scar and the false leg made of a whale s bone? And why is he obsessed by Moby Dick, the great white whale?Ishmael, the new recruit, has other strange shipmates. There s Queequeg for instance, covered in weird tattoos and selling shrunken human heads. And what of the shadowy figures creeping on board the whaling ship Pequod?Ahab leads them all in reckless pursuit of Moby Dick. Will he succeed in killing the whale, or will Moby Dick lure Ahab and his crew to destruction?"Real Reads" are accessible texts designed to support the literacy development of primary and lower secondary age children while introducing them to the riches of our international literary heritage. Each book is a retelling of a work of great literature from one of the world s greatest cultures, fitted into a 64-page book, making classic stories, dramas and histories available to intelligent young readers as a bridge to the full texts, to language students wanting access to other cultures, and to adult readers who are unlikely ever to read the original versions.

64 pages, Paperback

Published March 1, 2014

About the author

Margaret Elphinstone is a Scottish novelist. She studied at Queen's College in London and Durham University, where she graduated in English Language and Literature. She was until recently, Professor of Writing in the Department of English Studies at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, now retired. Her academic research areas are Scottish writers and the literature of Scotland's offshore islands.

Elphinstone published her first futuristic novel in 1987. Her first historical novel, The Sea Road was published in 2000 and won won a Scottish Arts Council Spring Book Award. She is also the author of Lost People (Wild Game Publications, 2024) The Gathering Night (Canongate Books, 2009), Gato (Sandstone Press, 2007), Light (Canongate Books, 2006), Voyagers (Canongate Books, 2003), Hy Brasil (Canongate Books, 2002), Islanders (Polygon, 1994), Apple from a Tree (Women's Press, 1990), A Sparrow's Flight (Polygon, 1989), and The Incomer (Women's Press, 1987).

She did extensive study tours in Iceland, Greenland, Labrador and the United States. She lived for eight years in the Shetland Islands and is the mother of two children.