Pop Quiz: What was the name of the real whale that inspired “Moby-Dick”?

Answer: Mocha Dick was the name of an actual sperm whale that was purportedly the model for Melville

Moby-Dick, or, The Whale was published in the United States on November 14, 1851. (It had appeared earlier in London.)

Etching of Joseph O. Eaton’s portrait of Herman Melville (Source: Library of Congress; Public Domain)

 

Melville’s home Arrowhead is located in the Berkshire region of Massachusetts.

Melville’s Writing Desk (Photo courtesy of Arrowhead-Berkshire Historical Society)

Read more about whales and whaling in Eric Jay Dolin’s Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America.

And read more about Melville and his work in Don’t Know Much About Literature: What You Need to Know But Never Learned About Grat Books and Authors.

Don’t Know Much About® Literature (Harper and Random House Audio)