Herman Melville
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
1851 · 682 pages
- Author
- Herman Melville
- Edition
- First American edition, complete in one volume
- Published
- New York, Harper & Brothers; London, Richard Bentley, 1851
- Pages
- 682
- File
- DjVu, 15.3 MB
- Text search
- yes
- Rights
- public domain
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About the book
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is Herman Melville’s sixth book, drawing on his own years at sea on whaling ships. It came out in London in October 1851 as The Whale, in three volumes, and a month later in New York under its present title. Sales were poor and reviews mixed; the novel was largely forgotten until a revival of interest in the 1920s.
The narrator, who asks to be called Ishmael, signs on to the Nantucket whaler Pequod with the harpooner Queequeg. Out at sea Captain Ahab reveals the real purpose of the voyage: to hunt down the white whale that took off his leg, whatever the cost to his ship and crew. The chase is interleaved with chapters on whales, whaling and the work of the ship, and with sermons, soliloquies and scenes written like a stage play.
Today Moby-Dick is ranked among the greatest American novels, admired for its range of styles and its questions about obsession, nature and the limits of knowledge. Its first line, “Call me Ishmael”, is one of the most quoted in literature.
Contents
Tap a chapter to open the book there.
About this edition
The first American edition, published in New York in 1851 by Harper & Brothers, with Richard Bentley of London also named on the title page. Unlike the London edition, it carries the title Moby-Dick and the Epilogue. The book is dedicated to Nathaniel Hawthorne and has a two-page table of contents, the “Etymology” and “Extracts” before Chapter I, and Harper’s advertisements for Melville’s earlier books at the end. The scan has a text layer.
How to read it
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Source
A scan from the Wikimedia Foundation's open projects. The book is in the public domain: free to read, download and share.