what is moby dick about

Moby-Dick is a novel by Herman Melville published in 1851. The book is about the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the maniacal quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, for vengeance against Moby Dick, the giant white sperm whale that bit off his leg on the ship's previous voyage. The novel is a complex work that intermingles narrative and essayistic portions, as well as an epilogue and front matter. It can sustain numerous, if not seemingly infinite, readings generated by multiple interpretative approaches. Melville composed Moby-Dick in two or even three stages, and scholars have concluded that the novel's style was influenced by various sources, including Shakespeare and Nathaniel Hawthorne.