Moby-Dick

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale was published in 1851 by Herman Melville, who had gone to sea as a young man on a whaling ship and later drew on that experience. The novel appeared to mixed reviews and sold poorly, and it was out of print when Melville died in 1891. The reputation it has now was built in the twentieth century, particularly after the centenary of his birth in 1919, and the book is now routinely described as one of the central works of American literature.

Structurally the novel is stranger than its reputation suggests. Ishmael narrates a story he is present for and also lectures the reader: chapters on the anatomy of whales, on the colour white, on the classification of the species, on the tools and ropes and boats of the industry, on whether whaling is a noble trade. Those digressions sit inside the narrative rather than beside it, and they are the reason the book is as long as it is. Ahab's monologues supply the counterweight, and his quarterdeck speech to the crew is the hinge the rest of the voyage turns on.

The supporting cast includes Queequeg, the harpooner Ishmael befriends in a Nantucket inn before either of them ships out; Starbuck, the mate who argues with his captain and does not desert him; and a crew drawn from the islands of the Pacific as well as from New England. Melville had been a successful writer of sea adventure before this, and Moby-Dick is the book where he stopped being one. Its early failure and its later canonisation make it an unusual case in nineteenth-century American writing, and its opening line is among the most quoted sentences in the language.