Free public-domain audiobook
Listen to Moby-Dick as a free audiobook on iPhone
You can listen to Moby-Dick by Herman Melville as a free audiobook on your iPhone. Because the book is in the public domain, you can download a free EPUB edition and have it read aloud with natural on-device voices - privately, offline, and without buying an audiobook.
Ishmael signs onto the Pequod and watches Captain Ahab chase the white whale that maimed him into open obsession. It is a whaling adventure wrapped around essays on the sea, labour, and fate, which makes it long and digressive on purpose. Listening suits it: the famous chapters land as spoken sermons.
Why Moby-Dick is free to listen to
Moby-Dick was published in 1851 and has long been public domain. Free EPUB editions, including carefully proofed ones, are easy to find.
Length: A long novel - 135 chapters, many of them very short.
How to listen to Moby-Dick on iPhone
- Download a free public-domain EPUB of Moby-Dick (Project Gutenberg and Standard Ebooks both offer one).
- Move the EPUB to your iPhone via AirDrop, iCloud Drive, email, or a direct download into Files.
- Open the EPUB in a reader app that reads text aloud, or use Apple's built-in Speak Screen to hear the open page.
- Choose a voice and press play. A reader that generates the voice on the device works offline, with nothing uploaded.
Questions & answers
Is Moby-Dick too long to listen to with text-to-speech?
Moby-Dick is long, but its 135 chapters are mostly short, which suits listening in small sessions. The book alternates a fast revenge plot with slower chapters on whaling itself. If the digressions lose you by ear, it is fine to speed up or skim those and stay with Ahab’s chase - the story survives it.
Where should I start with Moby-Dick?
Start Moby-Dick at chapter one - the famous "Call me Ishmael" opening sets the narrator and tone, and the early shore chapters are some of the most engaging in the book. Because chapters are short and self-contained, listening straight through from the beginning is the easiest way in.