About Moby-Dick

By Herman Melville · first published in 1851 · Literary Fiction

Moby-Dick is narrated by Ishmael, a restless young man who goes to sea on the Nantucket whaler Pequod. Only once the ship is far out does its captain, Ahab, reveal the real purpose of the voyage: to find and kill Moby Dick, the great white sperm whale that bit off his leg.

Herman Melville had himself sailed on a whaling ship, the Acushnet, in 1841. The novel was first published in London in October 1851 as The Whale, and a month later in New York as Moby-Dick. It sold poorly, and Melville was largely forgotten when he died in 1891; its reputation grew in the 1920s, and it is now often called one of the greatest American novels.

The novel is in the public domain. The preview opens with Chapter One, “Loomings”, and one of the most famous first lines in literature.