Moby Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville

A minor character in Moby-Dick was an homage to Melville's uncle.Ĭaptain John D’Wolf II, the husband of Melville's aunt Mary, was close friends with the German explorer and naturalist Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff, with whom he traveled in Siberia. That summer, Melville relocated to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and finished Moby-Dick in the spring of 1851. The author started writing Moby-Dick in 1850 while living at the family's New York City home. Herman Melville moved homes in the middle of writing Moby-Dick. The few survivors of the disaster resorted to cannibalism. The 20-person crew climbed into three whaleboats and drifted helplessly for four months and over 3000 miles, with almost no food or fresh water. On November 20, 1820, the Nantucket whaling ship Essex was rammed and sunk by huge sperm whale. Soon after, the Knickerbocker Magazine reported the story in “ Mocha Dick: or The White Whale of the Pacific.” For his novel, Melville replaced Mocha with Moby, though no one is sure why.Īnother incident also inspired Melville's tale. When he was finally killed around 1839, he had at least 19 harpoons lodged in his sides. But on the first sign of a harpoon, he would suddenly try to destroy the boat. Named after the Chilean island of Mocha, near where sailors first encountered him, he was a 70-foot albino sperm whale known for swimming calmly next to the whaling boats. Moby-Dick is based on a real-life whale called Mocha Dick.

Two whales inspired the story of Moby-Dick.Īhab's white whale is larger than life, but this is an instance where truth is stranger than fiction. Moby-Dick is considered a classic, but neither the genius of Herman Melville nor his grand masterpiece were fully recognized until well after the author’s death.

Moby Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville