Ten top fictional drownings

Lynn Shepherd is the author of the award-winning Murder at Mansfield Park. She studied English at Oxford and was a professional copywriter for over a decade. Her new novel of historical suspense is A Treacherous Likeness.

One of her top ten fictional drownings, as told to the Guardian:

Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick

Water, water everywhere in Herman Melville's leviathan classic. After 600-odd pages, there's a certain piquant satisfaction when this particular ancient mariner is drowned by the same great sperm whale he has set out to slaughter. In their last desperate struggle Ahab tries to spear the whale with his harpoon, but the rope catches him about the neck and Moby Dick drags him down into the depths, "and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago."

Read about another drowning on the list.

Moby-Dick also appears among Peter Murphy's top ten literary preachers, Penn Jillette's six favorite books, Peter F. Stevens's top ten nautical books, Katharine Quarmby's top ten disability stories, Jonathan Evison's six favorite books, Bella Bathurst's top 10 books on the sea, John Mullan's lists of ten of the best nightmares in literature and ten of the best tattoos in literature, Susan Cheever's five best books about obsession, Christopher Buckley's best books, Jane Yolen's five most important books, Chris Dodd's best books, Augusten Burroughs' five most important books, Norman Mailer's top ten works of literature, David Wroblewski's five most important books, Russell Banks' five most important books, and Philip Hoare's top ten books about whales.

--Marshal Zeringue