Skip to content

Moby-Dick Reviews Archive

Browse all 125 known contemporary reviews of Moby-Dick from 1851–1852, plus key revival-era criticism. The most complete collection online.

🇬🇧 London Spectator mixed
“It is a singular medley of naval observation, magazine article writing, satiric reflection upon the conventionalisms of civilized life, and rhapsody run mad. ”
— October 25, 1851
🇬🇧 London Morning Post mixed
“A work of great power and beauty. ”
— Date uncertain — quoted in publisher’s advertisements
🇬🇧 London Morning Chronicle mixed
“Here, however — in 'The Whale' — comes Herman Melville, in all his pristine powers... and alas! too, with the old extravagance, running a perfect muck throughout the three volumes, raving and rhapsodising in chapter after chapter. ”
— December 20, 1851 (partially reprinted in London Shipping and Mercantile Gazette, Jan 2, 1852)
🇬🇧 Dublin University Magazine mixed
“Badinage apart, this book, strange as it is, contains some scenes of stirring interest. ”
— Volume 39, February 1852
🇬🇧 London Athenaeum hostile
“This is an ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The style of his tale is in places disfigured by mad (rather than bad) English; and its catastrophe is hastily, weakly, and obscurely managed... Mr. Melville has to thank himself only if his horrors and his heroics are flung aside by the general reader, as so much trash belonging to the worst school of Bedlam literature. ”
— Henry F. Chorley, October 25, 1851
🇬🇧 London Literary Gazette hostile
“Wantonly eccentric, outrageously bombastic. ”
— December 6, 1851
🇬🇧 London New Quarterly Review hostile
“Sundry digressions concerning the nature, attributes, and physical properties of whales, interspersed with wild rhapsodies from the crack-brained captain, and dissertations upon a variety of topics. ”
— First Quarter 1852
🇬🇧 Edinburgh Evening Courant hostile
“A strange mixture of smart observations, quaint philosophy, American vulgarisms, and grandiose writing. ”
— November 25, 1851
🇬🇧 British Army Despatch hostile
“Glaring and extravagant faults... a rhapsody painful in its elaboration and absurd in its conduct... the story of the hero sharing his bed with the strange cannibal Queequeg is so opposed to all our notions that it affects the mind with disgust. ”
— January 16, 1852
🇺🇸 Morning Courier and New-York Enquirer favorable
“What writer is more welcome than Herman Melville?... This book has all the attractiveness of any of its predecessors; in truth it possesses more of a witching interest, since the author’s fancy has taken in it a wilder play than ever before. It is ostensibly taken up with whales and whalers, but a vast variety of characters and subjects figure in it, all set off with an artistic effect that irresistibly captivates the attention. The author writes with the gusto of true genius, and it must be a torpid spirit indeed that is not enlivened with the raciness of his humor and the redolence of his imagination. ”
— November 14, 1851
🇺🇸 Albany (NY) Argus favorable
“The production of a man of genius... abounds in bright, witty and attractive things. ”
— November 14, 1851
🇺🇸 Troy (NY) Budget favorable
“Bold and stirring... written in the author's happiest vein. ”
— November 14, 1851
← Previous Page 3 of 11 (130 reviews) Next →
← Back to the Reception Article
Moby-Dick Annotated Edition

🎯 Stop Struggling. Start Understanding.

The annotated edition of Moby-Dick gives you everything you need to finally get Melville's masterpiece:

  • ✅ Complete, unabridged text — every word of the original 1851 edition
  • ✅ Hundreds of explanatory footnotes — no more Googling every other page
  • ✅ Historical context — the Essex disaster, Nantucket whaling, Melville's life
  • ✅ Literary analysis — chapter-by-chapter commentary on themes and symbols
  • ✅ Victorian vocabulary — obsolete words and nautical terms defined inline
  • ✅ Biblical & literary references — every allusion traced to its source

Get the Annotated Edition at DodaBooks →