Moby-Dick (1851) is a novel by Herman Melville, published in London in October 1851 as "The Whale" and a month later in New York City as "Moby-Dick; or, The Whale." Moby Dick is generally regarded as Melville's magnum opus and one of the greatest American novels. The novel famously begins with the narratorial invocation, "Call me Ishmael." The narrator, like his biblical counterpart, is an outcast. Ishmael, who turns to the sea for meaning, relays to the audience the final voyage of the Pequod, a whaling vessel.

Source: Britannica