1851 · Harper & Brothers, New York · first American edition
Read Moby-Dick online with every whaling word explained where you meet it.
All 135 chapters plus the Epilogue, free to read, set from the New York first edition. A glossary of 64 whaling and shipboard terms sits beside the text and below on this page. Book club packs are quoted on request.
- Words
- ~209,000
- At 238 wpm
- 14 h 38 min
- Chapters
- 135 + Epilogue
- Price
- Free online
Chapter 1 · Loomings
Read chapter one online
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation.
Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.
Chapter 1, first two paragraphs. The Etymology and Extracts come first; many readers skip them and come back later. So did we.
Editor’s note on the Harper text
Two first editions exist. Bentley in London printed The Whale in October 1851 with some 700 small changes and cuts made by his reader, and dropped the Epilogue by accident, so English reviewers wondered how Ishmael survived to tell it. Harper in New York printed Moby-Dick in November, closer to what Melville sent. We use Harper.
The cetology chapters stay. So do the Extracts, all eighty of them. We get asked every month to offer a “story only” version. No abridgements. If a chapter is slow, it was slow in 1851 too, and chapter 32 on the classification of whales is where the book tells you what kind of book it is.
Where Melville’s spelling wanders, we leave it: “Nantucketer”, “phrensy” and “harpooneer” all stay as printed. The glossary handles the words that stop modern readers. There are fewer than you’d fear. Most people trip on about twenty.
Content notes
- Graphic killing and butchering of whales, over many chapters.
- Racial language of the 1850s, including in descriptions of Queequeg, Daggoo and Pip.
- A shipwreck with the loss of nearly all hands.
Whaling glossary · 16 of 64 terms
The words readers ask about most
In the online text each term is linked the first time it appears in a chapter. The full list of 64 is in the reading pages; these are the ones behind most of our email.
- Try-works
- Brick furnace on deck with two iron pots, used to boil blubber down into oil. Chapter 96 is named for it.
- Blubber-room
- Space below deck where strips of blubber are stowed before mincing.
- Lay
- A crewman’s share of the voyage’s profit, expressed as a fraction. Ishmael gets the 300th lay.
- Gam
- A social visit between two whaling ships met at sea. Chapter 53 explains it.
- Harpooneer
- Melville’s spelling of harpooner. The man who strikes the whale from the bow of the boat.
- Specksynder
- On Dutch ships, the chief harpooneer who also ran the cutting of blubber. Chapter 33.
- Mast-head
- The lookout post aloft. Men stood there two hours at a time watching for spouts.
- Line-tub
- Tub in the whaleboat holding the coiled harpoon line, around 200 fathoms of it.
- Loggerhead
- Post in the stern of the whaleboat around which the line is turned to slow it.
- Spermaceti
- Waxy oil from the head of the sperm whale, the most valuable part of the catch.
- Case
- The cavity in the whale’s head holding spermaceti. Tashtego falls into one in chapter 78.
- Ambergris
- Grey substance from the sperm whale’s gut, used in perfume. Chapter 92.
- Fast-fish
- A whale held by a line and so legally owned. Its opposite is a loose-fish. Chapter 89.
- Flukes
- The two lobes of the whale’s tail.
- Mincer
- The man who slices blubber thin for the try-pots, wearing a very particular garment. Chapter 95.
- Pequod
- Ahab’s ship out of Nantucket, named after a Native people of Connecticut.
Correction ledger
Every fix since launch
Live since 22 May 2023. Newest first. The text accuracy guarantee covers anything you report: checked within 7 days, logged here.
- 2024-11-02Ch. 40: stage directions in “Midnight, Forecastle” returned to italic, as printed.Harper p. 197
- 2024-05-13Glossary: “lay” entry corrected. Ishmael’s share is the 300th lay, not the 777th, which was Bildad’s first offer.glossary
- 2024-01-09Ch. 119: paragraph break restored between Starbuck and Ahab. Two speakers had merged.Harper p. 571
- 2023-09-25Extracts: entry 47 had dropped its attribution line. Restored.Extracts
- 2023-07-11Ch. 16:
NantucketeerNantucketer. Our typo.Harper p. 74 - 2023-06-02Ch. 3:
harpoonerharpooneer. OCR had modernised it once.Harper p. 17
Packs for a long voyage
How a group reads Moby-Dick with us
Groups usually take six to eight weeks. The printed pack can include the glossary as a separate folded card so it sits beside the book. The quote depends on copies, format, and whether you want it split into two volumes at chapter 66.
Tell us about the crew
How many readers, how many in large print, how many weeks.
We quote by email within two working days
With a suggested week-by-week split that avoids ending a meeting in the middle of the chase.
You confirm, or not
Nothing is paid on the site. No reply means no order.
Printed from this Harper text
Glossary card included on request, page numbers matching across standard and large print.
Before you commit to 135 chapters
Can we skip the whale chapters?
You can; we won’t print a version without them. Some groups mark chapters 32, 42 and 74 to 80 as optional. That is your call, not ours.
Is it the London or the New York text?
New York, Harper, 1851. It has the Epilogue and fewer of the London publisher’s cuts.
Who shouldn’t pick this for their group?
A club that meets once and wants to finish. Fourteen and a half hours doesn’t fit a month of evenings for most people. Try Frankenstein instead.
Group packs · quoted on request
Ask about a Moby-Dick pack
Tell us how many readers and when you meet. The reading groups page lists every format.