Moby-Dick
F2. Maritime Culture, Heritage, Archaeology, Art and MuseumsDefinition
1851 novel by Herman Melville.
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is Herman Melville’s 1851 novel, published in London as The Whale and in New York as Moby-Dick. Captain Ahab pursues the white sperm whale that took his leg, driving the Nantucket whaler Pequod and its crew to destruction; only Ishmael survives. Melville drew on his Acushnet voyage and on the 1820 wreck of the Essex, rammed by a sperm whale. The book combines narrative with cetology and whaling-trade detail, and is a foundational work of American maritime literature.
Source: H. Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (Harper & Brothers, New York, 1851).