Moby-Dick Trivia
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110 free Moby-Dick trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Moby-Dick trivia quiz sails the whole voyage: the bed shared at a New Bedford inn, Father Mapple's sermon, the Quaker owners, the doubloon nailed to the mast, Fedallah's prophecy, Pip left alone in the ocean, the coffin that becomes a life buoy and the three-day chase that sinks the ship. There are questions on the crew, from Starbuck and Stubb to Tashtego and Daggoo, and on why a Seattle coffee company ended up borrowing a first mate's name. The second half is about how the book was made and nearly lost: the whaler Melville sailed on, the wreck of the Essex, the albino whale off Chile, the picnic where he met Hawthorne, the London edition that dropped the epilogue, the tiny print runs, the $1,260 he earned, and the 1919 centenary that finally made it a classic. Gregory Peck, Ray Bradbury, Orson Welles and an Irish fishing town cover the 1956 film. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the novel, its author, its characters, the Essex and the film, and each explanation adds one detail worth carrying away. It suits book clubs, American literature classes and anyone who has ever started the book and stalled at the cetology chapters.
30 of 110 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Star Trek villain quotes Ahab's dying curse, 'for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee'?
Khan
Khan speaks Ahab's lines as he sets off the Genesis Device, hoping to take Kirk's Enterprise down with him.
Q 02Which 2015 Ron Howard film dramatizes the real whaleship disaster that inspired Moby-Dick's ending?
In the Heart of the Sea
In the Heart of the Sea follows the crew after a giant whale cripples their ship, leaving the survivors adrift through storms and starvation.
Q 03In Moby-Dick, what is the name of Captain Ahab's whaling ship?
Pequod
The Pequod sinks when Moby Dick rams her, becoming the second 'hearse' made of American wood that was prophesied for Ahab.
Q 04In Moby-Dick, what does Ahab use to temper the barbs of the harpoon he forges for the white whale?
Human blood
Human blood: Ahab refuses water and has the three pagan harpooneers give their own, howling that he baptizes the iron in the devil's name.
Q 05Moby Dick is which species of cetacean?
Sperm whale
Sperm whale: whalers hunted it for spermaceti, the waxy substance in its head used for candles and lubricants.
Q 06What did the white whale take from Ahab on a previous voyage?
His leg
His leg: Ahab swore revenge, while the Samuel Enderby's captain, who lost an arm to the same whale, says it's best let alone.
Q 07Ahab's prosthetic limb is made from what?
A whale's jawbone
A whale's jawbone: when it splinters mid-voyage, Ahab has the ship's carpenter make him a new one from jaw-ivory saved on the voyage.
Q 08In Moby-Dick, what does Ahab nail to the mast as a reward for the first man to sight the white whale?
A gold doubloon
A gold doubloon: Ahab sights Moby Dick first himself, then declares that fate reserved the coin for him alone.
Q 09In Moby-Dick, Ishmael says Queequeg's head recalls which founding father's, as seen in popular busts?
George Washington
George Washington: the comparison marks a turn, as the harpooneer Ishmael first dreaded sharing a bed with becomes an unlikely friend.
Q 10In Moby-Dick, what does the carpenter build for Queequeg that later saves Ishmael's life?
A coffin
A coffin: Queequeg recovers, and after the sinking the coffin shoots up beside Ishmael, who clings to it for almost a day and night.
Q 11In Moby-Dick, which ship rescues Ishmael, the sole survivor, at the end?
The Rachel
The Rachel: Ahab had refused to help search for her captain's missing son, yet she picks up Ishmael while still searching, finding 'another orphan'.
Q 12In Moby-Dick, which chief mate objects that Ahab's voyage is meant for profit, not revenge?
Starbuck
Starbuck: near the end he takes up a loaded musket and considers killing Ahab and turning the ship back for home.
Q 13Which rock band's drum-solo instrumental is titled 'Moby Dick'?
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin: when John Bonham played it live, the rest of the band walked off and left the stage to his drum solo.
Q 21In Moby-Dick, which young cabin boy is left alone in the ocean and loses his mind?
Pip
Pip: Ahab, touched by the mad boy, takes him under his wing and leads him to his own cabin.
Q 22In Moby-Dick, what does the white whale do to Ahab's whaleboat on the first day of the chase?
Bites it in two
Bites it in two: Ahab is flung into the sea, yet he refuses to give up and resumes the chase the next day.
Q 23In Moby-Dick, which way does Ahab's ship sail from the Atlantic toward the Pacific whaling grounds?
Round the Cape of Good Hope
Round the Cape of Good Hope: unable to reach the white whale's Pacific feeding grounds in time that season, Ahab plans a year's hunt through other seas first.
Q 14In Moby-Dick, which cheerful second mate hails from Cape Cod?
Stubb
Stubb: he tricks a French whaler into cutting loose a rotting whale, then digs valuable ambergris out of it.
Q 15In Moby-Dick, which port does Ishmael travel to first, before his ship sails from Nantucket?
New Bedford
New Bedford: at a crowded inn there, Ishmael must share a bed with the tattooed harpooneer Queequeg, who becomes his friend.
Q 16Father Mapple's sermon at the seamen's chapel is about which biblical figure?
Jonah
Jonah: Father Mapple reaches his pulpit, shaped like a ship's prow, by climbing a rope ladder.
Q 17In Moby-Dick, which dish do Ishmael and Queequeg eat at the Try Pots inn on Nantucket?
Chowder
Chowder: the landlady also takes Queequeg's harpoon for the night, since a boarder was once found dead with his harpoon in his side.
Q 18In Moby-Dick, on what day does Ahab's ship set sail from Nantucket?
Christmas Day
Christmas Day: yet for several days after the ship sails, nothing is seen of Captain Ahab above decks.
Q 19In Moby-Dick, who leads Ahab's secret boat crew and prophesies the captain's death?
Fedallah
Fedallah: he dies before Ahab, as he foretold, and his body is seen lashed to the whale's back on the chase's third day.
Q 20In Moby-Dick, what is prophesied to be the only thing that can kill Captain Ahab?
Hemp
Hemp: Ahab takes the prophecy to mean the gallows, so thinks himself immortal at sea, until a whale line catches his neck.
Q 24Moby-Dick is dedicated to which fellow American writer, Melville's new friend while he wrote it?
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne: their friendship may have spurred Melville to spend another year revising and deepening the book.
Q 25Under what title was Moby-Dick first published in London, a month before the American edition?
The Whale
The Whale: Melville had promised it to his London publisher for autumn 1850, but it arrived almost a year late.
Q 26What was missing from the British edition, leaving reviewers thinking the narrator had drowned?
The epilogue
Nothing in it was objectionable; the pages were most likely lost by the printer, and British critics were baffled by a dead man telling the story.
Q 27Which London publisher issued Moby-Dick's first, three-volume edition and censored some passages?
Richard Bentley
Richard Bentley: his edition was expurgated to avoid offending delicate political and moral sensibilities, and it sold poorly.
Q 28In Moby-Dick's cetology chapter, Ishmael sorts whales by size using the names of what?
Book formats
Book formats: Ishmael then leaves his whale system deliberately unfinished, praying 'God keep me from ever completing anything.'
Q 29In Moby-Dick, what does Ahab toss into the sea early in the voyage?
His pipe
His pipe: later he gives up his shaving razors too, handing them to the blacksmith to forge the barbs of his special harpoon.
Q 30Moby-Dick's ending was inspired by the real 1820 sinking of which Nantucket whaleship?
The Essex
The Essex: first mate Owen Chase published an account of the wreck, and the story fascinated Melville.