Herman Melville Works

About Moby-Dick

Herman Melville's Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (1851) is widely considered the great American novel — a meditation on obsession, fate, and humanity's struggle against nature told through the monomaniacal quest of Captain Ahab to hunt the white sperm whale that destroyed his leg. The novel blends adventure, philosophy, natural history, and tragedy into an epic ignored on publication but recognized as a masterpiece in the 20th century. Melville also wrote Typee, Omoo, White-Jacket, and the posthumous Billy Budd, as well as the iconic short story 'Bartleby, the Scrivener.'