Moby Dick

Written by Herman Melville

Narrated by Jonathan Epstein

Melville’s epic tale of one man versus a great white whale will delight Melville devotees as well as those who have yet to sail on this adventure in this mesmerizing new recording read by Jonathan Epstein.


The mountain whose whale-like shape first gave Melville the idea of writing Moby Dick rests in the Berkshire Hills, Massachusetts, a short drive away from The Alison Larkin Presents recording studio. “I’d been wanting to produce Moby Dick ever since I moved to Western Massachusetts” says producer Alison Larkin, “but I wanted to wait to find the perfect actor first. Then I found Jonathan Epstein, who drove up from Florida during the pandemic to record this.”


At the end of the recording, Larkin interviews Jonathan Epstein and recording engineer Galen Wade about the experience recording the great novel during the pandemic.


Jonathan Epstein is an acclaimed actor who has performed on and Off-Broadway, in London’s West End, and with the world-renowned Shakespeare & Company. Epstein is the two-time recipient of Boston’s coveted Elliot Norton acting Award.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alison Larkin Presents
• Release date: Mar 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662173493

Herman Melville

Herman Melville (1819-1891) was an American novelist, poet, and short story writer. Following a period of financial trouble, the Melville family moved from New York City to Albany, where Allan, Herman’s father, entered the fur business. When Allan died in 1832, the family struggled to make ends meet, and Herman and his brothers were forced to leave school in order to work. A small inheritance enabled Herman to enroll in school from 1835 to 1837, during which time he studied Latin and Shakespeare. The Panic of 1837 initiated another period of financial struggle for the Melvilles, who were forced to leave Albany. After publishing several essays in 1838, Melville went to sea on a merchant ship in 1839 before enlisting on a whaling voyage in 1840. In July 1842, Melville and a friend jumped ship at the Marquesas Islands, an experience the author would fictionalize in his first novel, Typee (1845). He returned home in 1844 to embark on a career as a writer, finding success as a novelist with the semi-autobiographical novels Typee and Omoo (1847), befriending and earning the admiration of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Oliver Wendell Holmes, and publishing his masterpiece Moby-Dick in 1851. Despite his early success as a novelist and writer of such short stories as “Bartleby, the Scrivener” and “Benito Cereno,” Melville struggled from the 1850s onward, turning to public lecturing and eventually settling into a career as a customs inspector in New York City. Towards the end of his life, Melville’s reputation as a writer had faded immensely, and most of his work remained out of print until critical reappraisal in the early twentieth century recognized him as one of America’s finest writers.

Reviews for Moby Dick

[Amanda E Ringqvist · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

WOW! What a book and what a performance! I usually switch between audiobook and ebook depending on where I am, but this performance was so good that it felt wrong to read and not listen.