Herman Melville's Window, Massachusetts Poster

"Herman Melville's Window, Arrowhead, Pittsfield, Massachusetts" by Catherine Sherman. In 1851, Herman Melville wrote his great novel "Moby-Dick; or The Whale" while looking out this window in his office in his house Arrowhead in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He loved to look at Mount Greylock in the distance, and dedicated "Moby-Dick" to the mountain. In the winter, the vast snow-covered fields might have looked like an ocean. Melville worked on a whaling ship in his young years, which provided material for his story of "Moby-Dick." The book is the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, for revenge on Moby Dick, the giant white sperm whale that on the ship's previous voyage bit off Ahab's leg at the knee. Melville moved to Arrowhead in 1850 and lived there until 1863. He wrote some of his best work at Arrowhead, but he didn't make a living from his writing while living there. He was supporting his mother, a wife and four children, and eventually he gave up and moved to New York City where he worked as a customs inspector in 1866 for New York City. He held the post for 19 years and had a reputation for honesty in a notoriously corrupt institution. The Berkshire County Historical Society maintains Arrowhead, which has been designated a National Historic Landmark.