PITTSFIELD, Mass. (AP) - Herman Melville’s birthday is being celebrated in the Massachusetts city where he wrote “Moby-Dick.”
The festivities start Tuesday when visitors to Arrowhead, Melville’s Pittsfield home, will get birthday cake. Anyone who can prove they were a professional sailor - in the Navy, Coast Guard, Marines - or were a fisherman or pirate will be admitted free.
A cover-to-cover reading of “Moby-Dick” is scheduled from Thursday through Sunday. The reading will take place from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. on the first three days.
It will be completed Sunday after a hike up Monument Mountain in Great Barrington, where Melville met Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850.
Melville was born Aug. 1, 1819. He wrote “Moby-Dick” at Arrowhead in 1850 and 1851. The home is now the headquarters of the Berkshire Historical Society.
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