There are articles, books, and webpages presented as guides to reading Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. Frequently, however, these “how to” reading guides either presuppose an ardent passion for this famously unwieldy book or just do not go out of their way to inspire such a passion in readers. The idea behind Chasingflukes is that students, especially first-time readers of Moby-Dick—green hands, if you will—are a unique and reliable authority on how to forge a passion for a book which, while it has appeared on countless lists of the most important literary works of all time, relatively few people have read in its entirety and almost no one will dare claim to have mastered. Our hope is that the student-driven content of the blog, Reading Guide, and newly gathered Resources (Bibliography, Filmography, Webography, and more) will offer a novel view of Moby-Dick to even its most seasoned readers. Finally, Chasingflukes wishes to improve upon extant reading guides for being interactive, open to public discourse and criticism. If you question our material or have an idea about how to improve it, we invite you to leave a comment to that effect; we will happily take your thoughts into account. If you wish to contribute your own original content to the site, please see our Guidelines for Contribution and email a site administrator (contact information available on the Contributors page). Thank you for your kind attention to our work.

– SW, updated July 2015