Moby-Dick - Wikipedia Jump to content Main menu Main menu move to sidebar hide Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Special pages Search Search Appearance Donate Create account Log in Personal tools Donate Create account Log in Contents move to sidebar hide (Top) 1 Plot 2 Structure Toggle Structure subsection 2.1 Point of view 2.2 Chapter structure 2.3 Nine meetings with other ships 3 Themes 4 Style Toggle Style subsection 4.1 Assimilation of Shakespeare 4.2 Thomas Carlyle 4.3 Renaissance humanism 5 Background Toggle Background subsection 5.1 Autobiographical elements 5.2 Whaling sources 5.3 Composition 6 Publication history Toggle Publication history subsection 6.1 Melville's revisions and British editorial revisions 6.2 British censorship and missing "Epilogue" 6.3 Last-minute change of title 6.4 Sales and earnings 7 Reception Toggle Reception subsection 7.1 British 7.2 American 8 Legacy and adaptations 9 Editions 10 Explanatory notes 11 Citations 12 General references 13 External links Toggle the table of contents Moby-Dick 74 languages Afrikaans Aragonés العربية مصرى Asturianu Kotava Беларуская (тарашкевіца) Беларуская Български বাংলা Català کوردی Čeština Dansk Deutsch Ελληνικά Esperanto Español Eesti Euskara فارسی Suomi Français Galego עברית Hrvatski Magyar Հայերեն Interlingua Bahasa Indonesia Íslenska Italiano 日本語 Jawa ქართული 한국어 Кыргызча Latina Lietuvių Latviešu Македонски മലയാളം Bahasa Melayu Nederlands Norsk nynorsk Norsk bokmål Occitan ਪੰਜਾਬੀ Polski Português Română Русский Scots سنڌي Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски සිංහල Simple English Slovenčina Shqip Српски / srpski Svenska Sakizaya ไทย Türkçe Українська اردو Oʻzbekcha / ўзбекча Tiếng Việt Winaray 吴语 მარგალური 閩南語 / Bân-lâm-gí 粵語 中文 Edit links Article Talk English Read View source View history Tools Tools move to sidebar hide Actions Read View source View history General What links here Related changes Upload file Permanent link Page information Cite this page Get shortened URL Switch to legacy parser Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikisource Wikidata item Appearance move to sidebar hide From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 1851 novel by Herman Melville "Moby Dick" redirects here. For other uses, see Moby Dick (disambiguation). November 14, 1851 (United States)<ref>{{cite news |last1=Wizevich |first1=Eli |title=Herman Melville's Great American Novel, 'Moby-Dick,' Only Got Mixed Reviews When It First Hit Bookstores |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/discover-the-origins-and-early-criticism-of-herman-melvilles-great-american-novel-moby-dick-180985272/ |access-date=6 November 2025 |work=Smithsonian Magazine |date=November 14, 2024}}</ref>"},"illustrator":{"wt":""},"dewey":{"wt":"813.3"},"congress":{"wt":"PZ3.M498 Mo3"},"wikisource":{"wt":"Moby-Dick (1851) US edition"},"pages":{"wt":"635 (U.S. edition)"}},"i":0}}]}'>Moby-Dick; or, The Whale The cover of the first American edition of Moby-Dick, published in November 1851 Author Herman Melville Language English Genre Adventure fiction epic sea story encyclopedic novel Publisher Richard Bentley (United Kingdom) Harper & Brothers (United States) Publication date October 18, 1851 (United Kingdom) November 14, 1851 (United States)[1] Publication place United States Pages 635 (U.S. edition) Dewey Decimal 813.3 Library of Congress Classification</span>"}]]}'>LC Class PZ3.M498 Mo3 Text Moby-Dick; or, The Whale at Wikisource Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is an 1851 epic novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book centers on the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the maniacal quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, for vengeance against Moby Dick, the giant white sperm whale that bit off his leg on the ship's previous voyage. A contribution to the literature of the American Renaissance, Moby-Dick was published to mixed reviews, was a commercial failure, and was out of print at the time of the author's death in 1891. Its reputation as a Great American Novel was established only in the 20th century, after the 1919 centennial of its author's birth. William Faulkner said he wished he had written the book himself,[2] and D. H. Lawrence called it "one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world" and "the greatest book of the sea ever written".[3] Its opening sentence, "Call me Ishmael", is among world literature's most famous.[4] Melville began writing Moby-Dick in February 1850 and finished 18 months later, a year after he had anticipated. Melville drew on his experience as a common sailor from 1841 to 1844, including on whalers, and on wide reading in whaling literature. The white whale is modeled on a notoriously hard-to-catch albino whale Mocha Dick, and the book's ending is based on the sinking of the whaleship Essex in 1820. The detailed and realistic descriptions of sailing, whale hunting and of extracting whale oil, as well as life aboard ship among a culturally diverse crew, are mixed with exploration of class and social status, good and evil, and the existence of God. The book's literary influences include Shakespeare, Thomas Carlyle, Sir Thomas Browne and the Bible. In addition to narrative prose, Melville uses styles and literary devices ranging from songs, poetry, and catalogs to Shakespearean stage directions, soliloquies, and asides. In August 1850, with the manuscript perhaps half finished, he met Nathaniel Hawthorne and was deeply impressed by his Mosses from an Old Manse, which he compared to Shakespeare in its cosmic ambitions. This encounter may have inspired him to revise and deepen Moby-Dick, which is dedicated to Hawthorne, "in token of my admiration for his genius". The book was first published (in three volumes) as The Whale in London in October 1851, and under its definitive title, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, in a single-volume edition in New York in November. The London publisher, Richard Bentley, censored or changed sensitive passages; Melville made revisions as well, including a last-minute change of the title for the New York edition. The whale, however, appears in the text of both editions as "Moby Dick", without the hyphen.[5] Reviewers in Britain were largely favorable,[6] though some objected that the tale seemed to be told by a narrator who perished with the ship, as the British edition lacked the epilogue recounting Ishmael's survival. American reviewers were more hostile.[7] Plot See also: List of Moby-Dick characters Moby Dick attacking a whaling boat The illustration of Queequeg in a 1902 edition Moby Dick in a 1902 edition Ishmael travels in December from Manhattan Island to New Bedford to join a whaling voyage as a green hand. At a crowded inn, he shares a bed with Queequeg, a tattooed Polynesian harpooneer and son of a king from the island of Rokovoko. The next morning, they attend Father Mapple's sermon on Jonah before heading to Nantucket. Ishmael signs aboard the Pequod under Quaker owners Bildad and Peleg. Peleg describes Captain Ahab as a "grand, ungodly, god-like man" who nevertheless has "his humanities". Queequeg joins the crew, and a man named Elijah prophesies a dire fate should Ishmael and Queequeg join Ahab. Shadowy figures board the ship, and on Christmas Day the Pequod departs. Ishmael extensively discusses cetology and introduces the crew members: chief mate Starbuck, a realist Nantucket Quaker; cheerful second mate Stubb from Cape Cod; third mate Flask; and their harpooners Queequeg, the pure-blooded Indian Tashtego, and the African Daggoo. Ahab finally appears on the quarterdeck, his leg replaced with a prosthesis fashioned from a whale's jawbone. He nails a doubloon to the mast as a reward for the first man to sight Moby Dick, the white whale which took his leg. Ahab's vow of vengeance captivates Ishmael, despite Starbuck's objection that the voyage is meant to be for profit. The Pequod sails toward the Azores, then southwest along South America before crossing to the Indian Ocean via the Cape of Good Hope rather than rounding Cape Horn. En route, Tashtego sights a sperm whale, and the shadowy figures are revealed as Ahab's special crew, led by the Parsee Fedallah. The Pequod begins making "gams", a form of social meeting, with other ships. The Goney cannot answer Ahab's question about Moby Dick, and the Town-Ho reveals a concealed story of divine judgement involving the whale. Stubb kills a sperm whale, and the cook Fleece delivers a sermon to the sharks feasting on the whale's carcass. Later, Queequeg mounts it, tied to Ishmael's belt by a monkey-rope as if they were Siamese twins. Stubb and Flask later kill a right whale whose head is fastened to a yardarm opposite the sperm whale's head. Ishmael philosophically compares the two heads: the right whale is Lockean, stoic, and the sperm whale is Kantean, platonic. Tashtego nearly drowns in the sperm whale's head while retrieving spermaceti but is rescued by Queequeg. Pip, a young black cabin-boy, twice leaps from a whale boat in terror; the second time he is abandoned at sea and is insane by the time they rescue him. The crew processes various harvested whale parts: liquifying congealed spermaceti, boiling blubber, decanting warm oil into casks, and stowing them in cargo. Ahab interprets the doubloon's symbolism as representing his energy, firmness, and victory. In a gam with the Samuel Enderby, its captain says he lost an arm to Moby Dick yet bears no animosity. Queequeg falls ill, prompting the carpenter to make a coffin, but Queequeg recovers and uses it as a seachest. Ahab has the blacksmith forge a special harpoon tempered in the blood of his harpooners. Fedallah prophesies Ahab's death: Ahab will see two hearses (one not made by mortal hands and the other made of American wood); Fedallah will die before Ahab; and only hemp can kill Ahab. During a typhoon, lightning strikes the mast and disorients the compass. Ahab makes a new one and orders the log be heaved, but the weathered line snaps, leaving the ship with no way to fix its location. The Rachel, commanded by a Nantucket captain, seeks survivors from one of her whaleboats which had pursued Moby Dick, including the captain's son, but Ahab refuses to join the search. In a final gam with the damaged Delight, Ahab flourishes his special harpoon and presses onward. Ahab sights Moby Dick and claims the doubloon for himself. On the first day of the chase, the whale bites Ahab's whaleboat in two, tosses the captain into the sea and scatters his crew. On the second day, it smashes the three boats hunting it; Fedallah is killed and lashed to the whale's back, which becomes the first "hearse" of his prophecy. On the third day, Moby Dick destroys the Pequod, making it the "hearse of American wood". Ahab plants his harpoon in the whale's flank, but the line loops around his neck, dragging him to his death. Queequeg's coffin escapes the suction of the sinking Pequod. Ishmael clings to the coffin until the Rachel rescues him while still searching for her lost seamen. Structure Point of view Ishmael is the narrator, shaping his story with the use of many different genres including sermons, stage plays, soliloquies, and emblematical readings.[8] Repeatedly, Ishmael refers to his writing of the book: "But how can I hope to explain myself here; and yet, in some dim, random way, explain myself? I must, else all these chapters might be naught."[9] Scholar John Bryant calls him the novel's "central consciousness and narrative voice".[10] Walter Bezanson first distinguishes Ishmael as narrator from Ishmael as character, whom he calls …