This book unfurls and examines the anti-slavery allegory at the subtextual core of Herman Melville s famed novel, Moby-Dick. Brian Pellar points to symbols and allusions in the novel such as the albinism of the famed whale, the Ship of State motif, Calhoun s cords, the equator, Jonah, Narcissus, St. Paul, and Thomas Hobbe s Leviathan. The work contextualizes these devices within a historical discussion of the Compromise of 1850 and subsequently strengthened Fugitive Slave Laws. Drawing on a rich variety of sources such as unpublished papers, letters, reviews, and family memorabilia, the...