Call Me Ishmael

Herman Melville, author of the classic novel Moby-Dick, was born on this day in 1819.

Melville went to sea as a cabin boy aboard a whaling ship at the age of twenty and later joined the U.S. Navy. These experiences no doubt contributed to the authenticity of his masterpiece, which he published in 1851.

William Bradford painted Whaler off the Vineyard—Outward Bound a few years after the book appeared. Bradford was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, a whaling town featured in the novel. This artwork recalls the crew's adventure with their monomaniacal Captain Ahab in his quest for the great white whale, Moby Dick.

The story begins with the narrator's resolve to head out to sea.

"Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can."

Source: Herman Melville. Moby-Dick or, the Whale (New York: Penguin, 1992).

Pictured: William Bradford, 1823–92, Whaler off the Vineyard—Outward Bound, 1859, oil on fiberboard, 16 x 24 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase.