Melville’s Making of Moby-Dick

The Whale

This flow follows Herman Melville from maritime experience through research and personal transformation to the creation and initial failure of his great novel.

increasing

Bearing strength in each event

decreasing

A Boy’s Prophecy A Boy’s Prophecy from "The Whale". The Whale in the Picture An early image A picture of a harpooned whale, seen among his father’s belongings, lodges in Melville’s imagination.

A Boy’s Prophecy from "The Whale". The Whale in the Picture An early image A picture of a harpooned whale, seen among his father’s belongings, lodges in Melville’s imagination.

The Whale in the Picture An early image A picture of a harpooned whale, seen among his father’s belongings, lodges in Melville’s imagination. He later recalls that it seemed to foretell a life of travel. Insecurity at home After his father’s death and the family’s financial collapse, Melville loses the stability he had known. The sea comes to represent escape as well as danger.

The Acushnet Voyage The Acushnet Voyage from "The Whale". A Whaler’s Education Leaving shore Melville signs onto the Acushnet and enters a trade of long watches, dangerous boat work, and brutal processing.

The Acushnet Voyage from "The Whale". A Whaler’s Education Leaving shore Melville signs onto the Acushnet and enters a trade of long watches, dangerous boat work, and brutal processing.

A Whaler’s Education Leaving shore Melville signs onto the Acushnet and enters a trade of long watches, dangerous boat work, and brutal processing. The voyage supplies direct experience of the whale fishery and of life among sailors. Material for a book He encounters the sea as work, risk, and collective experience rather than a romantic abstraction. The voyage becomes one source of the people, images, and procedures later used in Moby-Dick.

The Essex Story The Essex Story from "The Whale". A Disaster of the Sea The wreck’s account Owen Chase’s narrative tells of the Essex, attacked and sunk by a sperm whale.

The Essex Story from "The Whale". A Disaster of the Sea The wreck’s account Owen Chase’s narrative tells of the Essex, attacked and sunk by a sperm whale.

A Disaster of the Sea The wreck’s account Owen Chase’s narrative tells of the Essex, attacked and sunk by a sperm whale. Its crew survive the wreck only to confront starvation and the terrible collapse of human conduct. A model for catastrophe The story supplies Melville with a factual precedent for a whale that destroys a ship. Its terror becomes part of the imaginative architecture of Moby-Dick.

Hawthorne’s Influence Hawthorne’s Influence from "The Whale". A Book Deepens A consequential meeting Melville meets Nathaniel Hawthorne in the Berkshires and becomes intensely invested in his writing and companionship.

Hawthorne’s Influence from "The Whale". A Book Deepens A consequential meeting Melville meets Nathaniel Hawthorne in the Berkshires and becomes intensely invested in his writing and companionship.

A Book Deepens A consequential meeting Melville meets Nathaniel Hawthorne in the Berkshires and becomes intensely invested in his writing and companionship. Their discussions and Hawthorne’s work encourage Melville to see greater symbolic possibility in his own material. A changed ambition The whale narrative grows beyond a conventional adventure. Melville brings metaphysics, political anxiety, desire, and questions of good and evil into the work.

Publication and Neglect Publication and Neglect from "The Whale". A Difficult Reception Two editions Moby-Dick appears first in Britain, where the ending is omitted, and then in an American edition.

Publication and Neglect from "The Whale". A Difficult Reception Two editions Moby-Dick appears first in Britain, where the ending is omitted, and then in an American edition.

A Difficult Reception Two editions Moby-Dick appears first in Britain, where the ending is omitted, and then in an American edition. The book’s mixture of narrative, sermon, cetology, and digression leaves many readers confused. A delayed reputation The first edition fails to sell out, and Melville’s work does not receive lasting recognition during his life. Later readers transform the neglected book into a defining American novel.

During Melville’s childhood in New York City

From January 1841 and over the following years

During Melville’s research before writing Moby-Dick

In the summer and autumn of 1850

In 1851 and the years immediately afterward