Herman Melville
- Books on site
- 2
- Total words
- 220,522
- Reading time
- 12.3 h
- Years covered
- 1851–1853
- Longest
- Moby-Dick
Herman Melville (1819–1891) went to sea at nineteen, jumped ship in the Marquesas, and turned his adventures into the travel books that made him briefly famous in the 1840s. Moby-Dick (1851) destroyed that fame: it sold badly, was misunderstood as a book about whaling, and went out of print in his lifetime. He spent the last nineteen years of his life as a customs inspector in New York, and the novel was rediscovered in the 1920s and has been called the great American novel ever since.
The Melville titles on this site are free here in EPUB, AZW3 and KEPUB: Moby-Dick complete and unabridged in 135 chapters — some narrative, some essays on whales, some both — and Bartleby, the Scrivener, the short story about the clerk who would prefer not to.
Every Herman Melville title on editions.ink
In publication order, with word counts and reading time. The list is generated from the book pages themselves, so a new release appears here automatically.
Moby-Dick
Bartleby, the Scrivener| Year | Title | Words | Reading time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1851 | Moby-Dick | 206,000 | ~14 h |
| 1853 | Bartleby, the Scrivener | 14,522 | ~1 h |
Read next
Authors whose books sit closest on the shelf:
Charles DickensAlexandre DumasFyodor DostoevskyWilkie Collins
Questions readers ask
How many Herman Melville books are free on editions.ink?
There are 2 editions on the site, together about 220,522 words, or roughly 15 hours of reading. Each page has the full text as EPUB, AZW3 and KEPUB.
What is the best Herman Melville book to start with?
Moby-Dick (1851): it is a full novel but the most approachable of the long ones, at about 13.7 hours.
Are these editions complete or abridged?
Complete. The text comes from the public-domain transcription and is checked against the printed edition named on each book page; nothing is cut, modernised or annotated away.
Which format should I download?
EPUB is the safest default for phones, tablets, Kobo and most reading apps. AZW3 suits older Kindles, and KEPUB is the Kobo-native format with better page-turn and footnote handling on a Kobo device.
Do I need an account or an app?
No. The download links are direct files served from the site; no account, newsletter or paywall is involved.
How long does Moby-Dick take?
About 13.7 hours at 300 words per minute for 206,000 words — the longest title on this page. The whole list runs to roughly 15 hours.
Part of the author index and the complete catalogue. Every book page carries the full text, chapter summaries, characters, themes and the download links.