Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is 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, 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". Its opening sentence, "Call me Ishmael", is among world literature's most famous.
The cover of the first American edition of Moby-Dick, published in November 1851
Moby Dick attacking a whaling boat
The illustration of Queequeg in Melville's 1902 edition
Moby Dick in the 1902 edition
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are Moby-Dick (1851); Typee (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia; and Billy Budd, Sailor, a posthumously published novella. At the time of his death, Melville was no longer well known to the public, but the 1919 centennial of his birth was the starting point of a Melville revival. Moby-Dick eventually would be considered one of the great American novels.
Melville depicted in an 1870 portrait by Joseph Oriel Eaton
An 1810 portrait of Melville's father, Allan Melvill (1782–1832), by John Rubens Smith, now housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. In Melville's novel Pierre (1852), he fictionalized this portrait as the portrait of Pierre's father.
A c. 1815 portrait of Melville's mother Maria Gansevoort Melville by Ezra Ames, now on display at the National Gallery of Art
Richard Tobias Greene, who jumped ship with Melville in the Marquesas Islands and is Toby in Typee, pictured in 1846