Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
EditionOriginal English text, 1851 American first edition
A whaling captain who lost his leg to a white whale takes his ship and crew to the far side of the world to hunt it down.
Also in the library: the complete Korean translation.
Anyone can read the first chapter. Join free to read to the end and download EPUB and PDF.
DRM-free files. Translation CC BY-NC 4.0; the original work is in the public domain.
About the book
Ishmael, with an empty purse and a damp, drizzly November in his soul, decides to go whaling. In a New Bedford inn he is made to share a bed with Queequeg, a tattooed harpooneer from the South Seas, and by morning the two are friends. They sign on to the Pequod at Nantucket, and only days out at sea does her captain, Ahab, appear on deck, nailing a gold doubloon to the mast for the first man to sight the white whale that took his leg.
This is the complete text of the American first edition, published by Harper & Brothers in 1851, with the Etymology, the Extracts, the Epilogue left out of the London edition, and Melville’s own twenty-two footnotes. The spelling and punctuation of the source are kept. Our complete Korean translation was made from the same text, chapter for chapter.
Highlights
- Call me Ishmael.
- Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.
- from hell’s heart I stab at thee
Contents
Anyone can read up to the first chapter. Chapters with a lock are open to free members.
Colophon
Original English text, 1851 American first edition. Licensed CC BY-NC 4.0.Full colophon
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
Author · Herman Melville (1819–1891)
First publication · October 1851, Richard Bentley, London, as The Whale; November 1851, Harper & Brothers, New York, as Moby-Dick; or, The Whale.
Source text · A public-domain digital transcription of the American edition (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1851).
Extent · Complete and unabridged · Etymology, Extracts, one hundred and thirty-five chapters, and Epilogue, with the author’s footnotes · about 211,000 words
Copyright · The author died in 1891; the work is in the public domain worldwide.
This edition · The original English text, edited for Ether Library. The text itself is in the public domain. Ether Library’s editor’s note, this colophon, and the cover design are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).
Edition · English edition 1.0 · November 2026
Typography · Set in Lora (SIL Open Font License 1.1). Cover painting and design by Ether Library.
Text in the public domain · Front and back matter CC BY-NC 4.0
Ether Library · No. 0026