{"id":183348,"date":"2026-05-04T10:07:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T10:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/183348\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T10:07:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T10:07:18","slug":"fervent-fans-of-moby-dick-flock-to-this-massachusetts-city-to-read-the-book-cover-to-cover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/183348\/","title":{"rendered":"Fervent Fans of ‘Moby-Dick’ Flock to This Massachusetts City to Read the Book Cover to Cover"},"content":{"rendered":"

250 Places to Celebrate America<\/a><\/p>\n

A Smithsonian magazine special report<\/p>\n

Once the whaling capital of the world, New Bedford remembers Herman Melville\u2019s literary masterpiece with an annual reading marathon<\/p>\n

\"David<\/p>\n

\n

David Kindy<\/a><\/p>\n

| Correspondent<\/p>\n

February 3, 2026<\/p>\n

\"Moby-Dick<\/p>\n

A guest follows along during the 25-hour-long reading of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick; or, the Whale at the New Bedford Whaling Museum in Massachusetts.\u00a0
\n Craig F. Walker\/The Boston Globe via Getty Images<\/p>\n

On a recent cold winter\u2019s afternoon, the faithful gathered at the high altar of literary devotion to hear the gospel preached by a pious soul. Congregants filled the seats of the tabernacle and ringed the loft like sailors at the taffrail of a ship leaving harbor on a long voyage. Many held their \u201cbible\u201d in prayerful hands to follow the impassioned preacher as he intoned the famous first line of that potent prose:<\/p>\n

\u201cCall me Ishmael.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus began Massachusetts Poet Laureate Regie Gibson<\/a> as he read the first chapter from what is regarded by many to be America\u2019s greatest novel, Moby-Dick; or, the Whale<\/a> by Herman Melville<\/a>. Erupting in applause and shouts of joy, the overflow audience at the New Bedford Whaling Museum<\/a> then settled in for a 25-hour-long reading by more than 300 people of the masterpiece, which tells the tale of a 19th-century whaling expedition wrought with obsession, tragedy, derangement and revenge.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

Opened in 1915 on historic Johnny Cake Hill, the New Bedford Whaling Museum houses more than 750,000 whaling-industry artifacts, including 3,000 pieces of scrimshaw (whale bones and teeth hand-etched by whalers) and 2,500 logbooks from whaling ships.<\/p>\n

Gloworo via Wikipedia under CC BY-SA 4.0<\/p>\n

For 30 years, the Moby-Dick Marathon<\/a> has been an annual tradition in New Bedford. Once the whaling capital of the world, the Massachusetts port is where Melville departed on a voyage to the South Seas in 1841. This year, more than 3,100 devotees from around the country and across the seas attended the service, which began on January 3 (the 185th anniversary of Melville\u2019s whaling trip), and nearly 250 remained overnight.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of our oldest, greatest American novels,\u201d Gibson says. \u201cConnecting to the history and imagery that Melville gives us is astonishing. As a poet, reading it out loud you really see what poetic techniques are being used. There\u2019s repetition; there is alliteration; there are subtle hints of rhyme; there is all of this beautiful stuff that he is doing to make it \u2026 a cavalcade of sound that brings you in like the sea does.\u201d<\/p>\n

The story of Moby-Dick<\/p>\n

For the uninitiated, this tale of self-destruction is told through the perspective of Ishmael, who seeks to escape the \u201cdamp, drizzly November in my soul<\/a>\u201d by taking an ocean voyage. Along the way, he befriends harpooneer Queequeg, a Polynesian native who wants to experience the curious culture of American and European sailors. They sign on to the whale ship Pequod, captained by the fanatical Ahab, who lost his leg to a mighty white whale known as Moby-Dick. They set forth on their doomed voyage from New Bedford and sail to the Pacific Ocean, where an obsessed Ahab leads the hunt, only to lose his life, ship and most of his crew to the leviathan.<\/p>\n

The allegorical nature of the story makes it even more profound. When Melville published Moby-Dick in 1851, the United States was on a cataclysmic course toward Civil War. The writer embellished his book with imagery evoking the coming conflict and the blind attitudes of a society bent on an all-consuming conflagration.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an experimental novel,\u201d says Nathaniel Philbrick<\/a>, author of Why Read Moby-Dick?<\/a> and other award-winning books on history, including In the Heart of the Sea<\/a>, about the 1819 ship sunk by a whale that Melville built his story around. \u201cIt\u2019s one of those timeless works of literature that is written at such a high level. It\u2019s about a society on the verge of a catastrophe. Somehow, Melville works that into a story of a whaling voyage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quick fact: “The city that lit the world”<\/p>\n


\n\tNew Bedford<\/a>, Massachusetts, was once the wealthiest city per capita in North America. Its wealth came from exporting\u00a0whale oil, used in lamps and\u00a0candles in\u00a0the days before electricity, in the 19th century. <\/p>\n

Born in 1819, Melville came from a wealthy background, though his father squandered that fortune. To survive, he worked a series of jobs, as a schoolteacher, shopkeeper and merchant mariner. He then tried his hand at whaling.<\/p>\n

Melville took up writing after his experiences on the South Seas, which were recounted in the romanticized adventure-travel book Typee<\/a> (1849), along with several novels and books of poetry. Sadly, Moby-Dick did not achieve the initial acclaim Melville hoped for, and his fame began to fade.<\/p>\n

Melville died in 1891 believing his sacred tome had fallen on deaf ears. Amazingly, Moby-Dick sold fewer than 3,200 copies<\/a> in his lifetime. Critics found the story \u201cabsurd,\u201d and readers weren\u2019t interested in a novel style that diverged so sharply from the simple adventure books they were used to reading. Scholars rediscovered his writings during a 1919 centennial celebration marking his birth. Moby-Dick gained popularity when Nobel laureate and author William Faulkner<\/a> stated, \u201cI wish I had written that<\/a>.\u201d He equated it to a Greek tragedy and viewed it as the pinnacle of American writing.<\/p>\n

Philbrick echoed those sentiments when he wrote<\/a> in 2011: \u201cFor me, Moby-Dick is more than the greatest American novel ever written; it is a metaphysical survival manual\u2014the best guidebook there is for a literate man or woman facing an impenetrable unknown: the future of civilization in this storm-tossed 21st century.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whaling history runs deep in New Bedford<\/p>\n

Masterwork aside, Melville is revered in New Bedford for his deferential descriptions of the city. When Moby-Dick resurfaced as a classic in the 20th century, it helped the community reclaim its early grandeur. For a time, New Bedford was the wealthiest community in the country because of the vast fortunes made from the whaling industry. At its peak in the mid-19th century, the port was known as \u201cthe city that lit the world<\/a>,\u201d because much of the oil from harvested whales was used in lamps. In 1857, 329 whaling ships valued at $12 million<\/a> in today\u2019s money called New Bedford home.<\/p>\n

Melville\u2019s ode<\/a> to New Bedford in the novel remains a source of community pride:<\/p>\n

The town itself is perhaps the dearest place to live in, in all New England. \u2026 Nowhere in all America will you find more patrician-like houses, parks and gardens more opulent, than in New Bedford. \u2026 All these brave houses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. One and all, they were harpooned and dragged up hither from the bottom of the sea.<\/p>\n

Today, the city\u2019s waterfront is filled with links to its whaling past and Melville\u2019s novel, retaining much of its former glory in the form of cobblestone streets<\/a>, elegant mansions and buildings<\/a>, statues<\/a> and memorials<\/a>, and more. A brewery<\/a> is even named after the great whale, and countless stores and caf\u00e9s honor the literary masterpiece. But as pervasive as the whale is about town, what keeps the seaport vibrant today is the more humble sea scallop. New Bedford is now the hub for the world\u2019s largest sea scallop fishery, and host to an annual scallop festival<\/a> with a shucking contest and other events.<\/p>\n

\"Lagoda<\/p>\n

Guests of the 2025 Moby-Dick Marathon sit around and aboard the Lagoda,\u00a0a large model of a whaling ship that sailed from New Bedford more than 150 years ago.<\/p>\n

Craig F. Walker\/The Boston Globe via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The shining temple of the city is the New Bedford Whaling Museum, where the Moby-Dick Marathon begins in an exhibit hall featuring the Lagoda<\/a>, a large model of a whaling ship that sailed from New Bedford more than 150 years ago. While a series of readers lyrically delivers the humor and honesty of friendship on a shipboard journey, as well as the ferocity of a duel to the death on the high seas, listeners are enchanted by the presence of the half-scale replica of the three-masted bark that braved a trip around Cape Horn<\/a> and plied the seas in search of bounty.<\/p>\n

Opened in 1903 on historic Johnny Cake Hill<\/a>, the museum houses more than 750,000 whaling-industry artifacts, including 3,000 pieces of scrimshaw (whale bones and teeth hand-etched by whalers) and 2,500 logbooks from whaling ships. Both collections are the largest of their kind in the world. The museum complex covers an entire city block and includes 20 exhibit galleries, featuring five complete whale skeletons as well as artwork by major American artists who lived or worked in the New Bedford area. Collections of art and furniture from the 19th century serve as a reminder of the immense wealth generated by the whaling industry.<\/p>\n

The whaling museum attracts visitors year-round, but it becomes a holy site during the Moby-Dick Marathon, held traditionally on the first weekend in January. Events are staged over three days and include a dinner and lecture with Melville experts, a \u201cStump the Scholars\u201d session and discussions about art, whaling and New Bedford. Hot coffee flows through the night, and gift bags are distributed to those who make it through all 25 hours of the marathon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had our largest crowd in history this year with 3,193 people,\u201d says Annelise Conway, the museum\u2019s chief engagement officer. \u201cSome are Melville die-hards. Some are literary tourists who come for the bucket-list experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the whaling museum is the high altar, then the Seamen\u2019s Bethel<\/a> is the chapel. The marathon moves briefly to this location just across the street for the chapters on a portentous sermon about the biblical prophet Jonah<\/a>, who was swallowed by a whale. Visitors cram into this simple chantry, where the walls are lined with cenotaphs<\/a> dedicated to New Bedford sailors who lost their lives on faraway seas.<\/p>\n

Melville and his brother Gansevoort<\/a> visited the bethel, built in 1832 as a spiritual haven for mariners, just prior to departing New Bedford to \u201cgo a-whaling<\/a>\u201d on the ship Acushnet<\/a>. Little has changed at the old mission, except for the pulpit, which the New Bedford Port Society<\/a> restyled in 1961 to resemble the prow of a ship depicted in the 1956 movie Moby Dick<\/a>, starring Gregory Peck and Richard Basehart.<\/p>\n

\"Fervent<\/p>\n

Within the next 15 months, the city will install a statue<\/a> honoring Herman Melville on the grounds of the Seamen\u2019s Bethel.<\/p>\n

Within the next 15 months, the city will install a statue<\/a> honoring Herman Melville on the grounds of the Seamen\u2019s Bethel. Standing over seven feet tall, the bronze sculpture with a grey patina will feature the author in a sea swell framed by three large whale ribs.<\/p>\n

A treasured tradition<\/p>\n

For Don Kreis of Concord, New Hampshire, the Moby-Dick Marathon has become an annual pilgrimage of sorts. He read at last year\u2019s event and decided to do so again this year with his 24-year-old daughter, Rose Keller, who lives in Augusta, Maine. Both are \u201cMoby-Dick fanatics, like people who go to Grateful Dead concerts,\u201d he says. He read the novel to her when she was a baby, and both call it their favorite book.<\/p>\n

For the 2026 marathon, they selected the 3 a.m. time slot, with father going first, followed by his daughter. Despite the hour, the museum gallery where the marathon concludes was packed with reverential souls, all listening intently.<\/p>\n

\"Seamen's<\/p>\n

The marathon moves briefly to the Seamen’s Bethel just across the street from the New Bedford Whaling Museum for the chapters on a portentous sermon about the biblical prophet Jonah, who was swallowed by a whale.<\/p>\n

David Kindy<\/p>\n

When Kreis stepped to the podium, he began reading \u201cChapter 81, The Pequod Meets the Virgin.\u201d This is when the New Bedford ship encounters a Dutch vessel that has not yet harvested a whale, known as a \u201cvirgin\u201d to the salty whalemen. The two ships then launch their smaller boats of harpooneers to chase the same sperm whale.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you sign up to read, you don\u2019t get to pick the section\u2014just the time,\u201d Kreis says. \u201cAs I started reading, I realized it was Rose\u2019s favorite chapter. I started reading it and then she took over after five minutes. We call this our \u2018Moby-Dick Miracle.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Both father and daughter are planning to read at the 2027 Moby-Dick Marathon.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it\u2019s preaching to the choir, but the entire weekend is devoted to celebrating the one true religion as passed down by a prophet and literary genius who understood the spiritual needs of successive generations of readers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that Moby-Dick is relevant,\u201d Conway says. \u201cWe know people still want to read that book and understand it and really dissect it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Planning Your Next Trip?<\/p>\n

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\n A Note to our Readers
\n Smithsonian magazine participates in affiliate link advertising programs. If you purchase an item through these links, we receive a commission.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"250 Places to Celebrate America A Smithsonian magazine special report Once the whaling capital of the world, New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":["post-183348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}