This topic explores the special character of Nantucket Island as reflected in literature, from ship’s logs and journals, diaries, and music as well as it’s representation in both non-fiction and fiction.
- What is the Nantucket Girls Song?
I have made up my mind now to be a Sailor’s wife, To have a purse full of money and...More Read more from What is the Nantucket Girls Song? - Who was Long Tom Coffin?
Long Tom Coffin is a character in James Fenimore Cooper’s 1824 novel The Pilot. The novel was published ten years...More Read more from Who was Long Tom Coffin? - “Very Like a Whale” Editions of Moby-Dick
Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick originally appeared in 1851 to little fanfare and even less renown. With a drab, darkish, dreary cover,...More Read more from “Very Like a Whale” Editions of Moby-Dick - “My Yale College and My Harvard”: The Writing of Herman Melville’s Sea Works
A WHALE-SHIP WAS MY YALE COLLEGE and my Harvard,” Herman Melville writes in Moby-Dick (ch. 24). Of course, it wasn’t...More Read more from “My Yale College and My Harvard”: The Writing of Herman Melville’s Sea Works - At What Cost? Mariners Lost at Sea
Only Ishmael survived the voyage of the Pequod, his shipmates perishing from Ahab’s maniacal pursuit of the white whale. To...More Read more from At What Cost? Mariners Lost at Sea - Cannibalism and “Custom of the Sea”
Life at sea occasionally ended in tragedy. When vessels foundered in the age of sail, and crews found themselves in...More Read more from Cannibalism and “Custom of the Sea” - Moby-Dick, The Monster Myth
Before Melville, stories of demonic whales circled the globe. The whales that emerge from myths and fables often were not...More Read more from Moby-Dick, The Monster Myth - Herman Melville and Nantucket
Herman Melville wrote his classic novel Moby-Dick (1851) without having visited the island of Nantucket. The island and its whaling...More Read more from Herman Melville and Nantucket - How did businesses cater to crewmembers of whaleships when they were ashore?
Just as Melville in Moby-Dick describes boarding houses for seamen ashore, Nantucket provided short-term lodgings. Having left the sea, Captain...More Read more from How did businesses cater to crewmembers of whaleships when they were ashore? - How does the crew of Melville’s Pequod compare to the typical crew of a Nantucket whaleship?
Just as aboard the fictional Pequod, the crews of Nantucket whaleships were multiethnic. On the outside wall of the Nantucket...More Read more from How does the crew of Melville’s Pequod compare to the typical crew of a Nantucket whaleship? - Pop Culture and Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick is emblazoned in the canon of literature, art, opera, theater, film, and daily life. When did you first spot...More Read more from Pop Culture and Moby-Dick - Ship’s Logs and Journals at the NHA Research Library
“Tuesday June the 16th [Day] 482. Commences with moderate trades, course S at 4 PM Long. by Chro. 137.37.15, Course...More Read more from Ship’s Logs and Journals at the NHA Research Library - Shipwrecks
Shipwrecks sometimes ruined whaling careers. For George Pollard, Nantucket whaler and captain of the Essex, the proverbial lightning struck twice....More Read more from Shipwrecks - The More Things Change: Diary of Charles Dyer
Occasionally a visitor will ask to see something in the NHA Research Library that rarely sees the light of day....More Read more from The More Things Change: Diary of Charles Dyer - The Unemployable Herman Melville
After all this time, we are still learning a little more about Herman Melville’s decision to sign on a whaleship...More Read more from The Unemployable Herman Melville - What is “eye dialect”?
In newspapers and books, particularly in the 1800s, this was a way of approximating in print nonstandard pronunciation of English....More Read more from What is “eye dialect”?