BOOK: The Pequod is from the
1851 novel Moby Dick by American author Herman Melville. Melville had
experience at sea, and his reading of writings on whaling helped flesh
out this classic book. A real albino whale called Mocha Dick was the
inspiration for the whale. The sinking of the Essex by a whale was a
further inspiration. Initially a commercial failure, it has become a
fully lfledged American Classic.
STORY: The story is about the obsessive captain of the the whaler
Pequod driven to revenge on the white whale Moby Dick, which destroyed
his ship and severed his leg at the knee on a previous voyage. The story
is told by the sailor Ishmael.
SHIP: The Pequod is a fictional 19th-century Nantucket whaling ship
and has a quarterdeck and a forecastle. It is three-masted like most
Nantucket whalers of the time.
COIN: Depicts the Pequod under full sail while the white sperm whale Moby Dick breaches from the water in front of her.