On demand

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale

Name: Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
Author: Herman Melville

Herman Melville · 1851 · 209,399 words

10:29:39

at 370 wpm · the whole book

The audiobook runs about twenty-one hours.

A gold coin is nailed to the mainmast of the whaleship Pequod. It is for whoever first sights the whale that is white at the brow and hump and bent in the jaw. The ship's rails are studded with whales' teeth and her course is round the globe. On her quarter-deck stands Ahab, her captain, scarred from hairline to collar, on a leg of whale-jaw ivory. He is seldom in his bed. Starbuck, his first mate, has a young wife and a son at home, and is under the orders of a man he believes mad.

Moby-Dick is the story of a hunt for a single animal across every ocean, and of the men who must live inside another man's purpose. It is very funny. Under it is a book about the sea as the larger and darker part of the world, and about one man's will set against a universe that does not care.

136 chapters · begin at the beginning

╪1Loomings6:33begin ▸

·2The Carpet-Bag4:15sealed

·3The Spouter-Inn17:21sealed

·4The Counterpane4:52sealed

·5Breakfast2:13sealed

·6The Street2:28sealed

·7The Chapel2:48sealed

·8The Pulpit2:47sealed

·9The Sermon10:43sealed

·10A Bosom Friend4:37sealed

·11Nightgown2:05sealed

·12Biographical2:37sealed

·13Wheelbarrow5:06sealed

·14Nantucket2:15sealed

·15Chowder3:32sealed

·16The Ship16:31sealed

·17The Ramadan6:52sealed

·18His Mark4:10sealed

·19The Prophet3:44sealed

·20All Astir2:42sealed

·21Going Aboard3:24sealed

·22Merry Christmas4:58sealed

·23The Lee Shore1:07sealed

·24The Advocate4:56sealed

·25Postscript0:51sealed

·26Knights and Squires3:38sealed

·27Knights and Squires4:55sealed

·28Ahab4:09sealed

·29Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb3:36sealed

·30The Pipe0:52sealed

·31Queen Mab2:40sealed

·32Cetology15:38sealed

·33The Specksnyder2:52sealed

·34The Cabin-Table6:33sealed

·35The Mast-Head7:28sealed

·36The Quarter-Deck8:47sealed

·37Sunset1:36sealed

·38Dusk1:13sealed

·39First Night-Watch0:51sealed

·40Midnight, Forecastle5:09sealed

·41Moby Dick11:10sealed

·42The Whiteness of the Whale10:39sealed

·43Hark!0:58sealed

·44The Chart6:00sealed

·45The Affidavit10:26sealed

·46Surmises2:56sealed

·47The Mat-Maker2:46sealed

·48The First Lowering11:58sealed

·49The Hyena2:28sealed

·50Ahab’s Boat and Crew. Fedallah2:55sealed

·51The Spirit-Spout4:27sealed

·52The Albatross2:07sealed

·53The Gam4:47sealed

·54The Town-Ho’s Story23:55sealed

·55Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales5:33sealed

·56Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales, and the True3:49sealed

·57Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth; in Wood; in Sheet-Iron; in2:45sealed

·58Brit2:57sealed

·59Squid2:44sealed

·60The Line4:14sealed

·61Stubb Kills a Whale5:53sealed

·62The Dart1:39sealed

·63The Crotch1:25sealed

·64Stubb’s Supper9:04sealed

·65The Whale as a Dish2:53sealed

·66The Shark Massacre1:51sealed

·67Cutting In2:08sealed

·68The Blanket3:33sealed

·69The Funeral1:18sealed

·70The Sphynx2:36sealed

·71The Jeroboam’s Story6:49sealed

·72The Monkey-Rope4:56sealed

·73Stubb and Flask kill a Right Whale; and Then Have a Talk6:28sealed

·74The Sperm Whale’s Head—Contrasted View4:49sealed

·75The Right Whale’s Head—Contrasted View3:36sealed

·76The Battering-Ram2:34sealed

·77The Great Heidelburgh Tun1:53sealed

·78Cistern and Buckets4:53sealed

·79The Prairie2:47sealed

·80The Nut2:39sealed

·81The Pequod Meets The Virgin12:57sealed

·82The Honor and Glory of Whaling3:22sealed

·83Jonah Historically Regarded2:17sealed

·84Pitchpoling2:24sealed

·85The Fountain6:04sealed

·86The Tail5:25sealed

·87The Grand Armada14:04sealed

·88Schools and Schoolmasters3:33sealed

·89Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish4:10sealed

·90Heads or Tails3:07sealed

·91The Pequod Meets The Rose-Bud7:30sealed

·92Ambergris2:51sealed

·93The Castaway4:50sealed

·94A Squeeze of the Hand3:47sealed

·95The Cassock1:28sealed

·96The Try-Works5:25sealed

·97The Lamp0:43sealed

·98Stowing Down and Clearing Up3:02sealed

·99The Doubloon7:31sealed

·100Leg and Arm8:14sealed

·101The Decanter5:17sealed

·102A Bower in the Arsacides4:40sealed

·103Measurement of The Whale’s Skeleton2:43sealed

·104The Fossil Whale4:13sealed

·105Does the Whale’s Magnitude Diminish?—Will He Perish?4:33sealed

·106Ahab’s Leg2:45sealed

·107The Carpenter3:07sealed

·108Ahab and the Carpenter4:55sealed

·109Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin2:46sealed

·110Queequeg in His Coffin6:42sealed

·111The Pacific1:14sealed

·112The Blacksmith2:49sealed

·113The Forge3:49sealed

·114The Gilder1:55sealed

·115The Pequod Meets The Bachelor2:38sealed

·116The Dying Whale1:34sealed

·117The Whale Watch1:26sealed

·118The Quadrant2:41sealed

·119The Candles7:42sealed

·120The Deck Towards the End of the First Night Watch0:34sealed

·121Midnight.—The Forecastle Bulwarks1:55sealed

·122Midnight Aloft.—Thunder and Lightning0:09sealed

·123The Musket3:44sealed

·124The Needle3:38sealed

·125The Log and Line3:33sealed

·126The Life-Buoy4:07sealed

·127The Deck2:17sealed

·128The Pequod Meets The Rachel4:12sealed

·129The Cabin1:50sealed

·130The Hat5:01sealed

·131The Pequod Meets The Delight1:19sealed

·132The Symphony4:59sealed

·133The Chase—First Day10:44sealed

·134The Chase—Second Day10:04sealed

·135The Chase.—Third Day13:53sealed

·Epilogue0:48sealed

How long does it take to read Moby-Dick?

Moby-Dick is 209,399 words. At an average adult reading pace of 300 words a minute that is about 11 hr 38 min, or roughly 8 hr 43 min if you read quickly and 17 hr 27 min at a more deliberate 200 words a minute.

That count is measured from the complete public-domain text rather than estimated from a page count, so you can compare all the books side by side.

Text: Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, Herman Melville (1851), public domain, via Project Gutenberg. · You read at the book's authored pace; nothing here is stored anywhere but this browser. · About Midsentence