Front:
Herman Melville
BEDFORD
1984
02741
Tom
USA 20c
MA
Back:
“Moby Dick rising with utmost velocity from the farthest
depths, the Sperm Whale thus booms his entire bulk into
the pure element of air and piling up a mountain of
foam. This breaching is his act of defiance. . . ." And
so continues Herman Melville's greatest literary work,
Moby Dick. The fictional novels for which Melville
became so famous are rooted in the actual life experi-
ences of his early manhood. Melville spent nearly two
years of his life on whaling ships ... and once during
his youth, Melville and a friend jumped ship in the
Marquesas Islands of the South Pacific — known for
fierce cannibals, the Typees. Moby Dick is the story of
the hunt for a ferocious white whale actually known to
the sailors of Melville's time. In the story, Captain Ahab
of the ship, the Pequod, has lost a leg in an earlier battle
with the whale and is determined to catch the whale at
any cost. In honor of Herman Melville, the author of
Moby Dick, the United States Postal Service issued the
No. 84-34
©1984 The Maximum Card Collection
A Division of Unicover Corporation . Cheyenne, WY 82008-0007
Original painting by Tom Bjarnason.
