Today in History: Moby-Dick was published in the US
Initially, the book about Captain Ahab and his quest for a giant white whale was a major flop at the time.
On this day in 1851, Moby-Dick, a novel by Herman Melville about the voyage of the whaling ship Pequod, was published by Harper & Brothers in New York.
Moby-Dick has since been considered a great classic of American literature and contains one of the most famous opening lines in fiction, i.e.: “Call me Ishmael”. Herman Melville was born in New York City in 1819 and spent time in the merchant marines, the US Navy and on a whaling ship in the South Seas.
In 1846, he published his first novel, Typee, a romantic adventure based on his experiences in Polynesia. The book was a success and a sequel, Omoo, was published in 1847. Three more novels followed, with mixed critical and commercial results.
Melville’s sixth book, Moby-Dick, was first published in October 1851 in London, in three volumes under the title The Whale, and then in the US a month later. Melville had promised his publisher an adventure story similar to his popular earlier works, but instead, Moby-Dick was a tragic epic, influenced in part by Melville’s friend and Pittsfield, Massachusetts, neighbour, Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose novels included The Scarlet Letter.
After Moby-Dick’s disappointing reception, Melville continued to produce novels, short stories (Bartleby) and poetry, but writing wasn’t paying the bills, so in 1865 he returned to New York to work as a customs inspector, a job he would go on to hold for 20 years. Melville died in 1891, largely forgotten by the literary world.
By the 1920s however, scholars had rediscovered his work, Moby-Dick in particular, and it eventually became a staple of high school reading lists across the United States. Billy Budd, Melville’s final novel, was only published in 1924, 33 years after his death.
Moby-Dick has since been adapted for the silver screen twice, once in 1956 for the film Moby Dick and again in 2015, for the film In the Heart of the Sea.
Do you perhaps have more information pertaining to this story? Email us at roodepoortrecord@caxton.co.za (remember to include your contact details) or phone us on 011 955 1130.
For free daily local news on the West Rand, also visit our sister newspaper websites
Remember to visit our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages to let your voice be heard!
