‘Moby Dick’ First Published – Dale’s Daily Data

As so often happens with novels when they’re first published ‘Moby Dick’ was a flop when it was first published.  Herman Melville spent time in the U-S Navy, the Merchant Marine and on a whaling ship as a young man.  He wrote five novels before ‘Moby Dick’ with some success.  Most of them were romantic
adventure novels, but ‘Moby Dick’ was so dark and tragic the reviews were negative and so were sales. 

Even with that disappointment Melville continued writing several more novels until he
found he just couldn’t pay the bills, so he returned to New York City where he worked as a customs
inspector for the next 20 years.

Melville died in 1891 virtually unknown until the 1920’s when literary scholars began to take another look at his work, especially ‘Moby Dick’ and it became a classic.  In many classrooms it became required reading.  ‘Moby Dick’ was published on this date in 1851.

Also discovered among his unpublished works was ‘Billy Budd’.  It was finally published 33 years after his
death.