To which American author is Moby-Dick dedicated?

Moby-Dick is dedicated to Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Herman Melville dedicated the novel with the words “In token of my admiration for his genius, this book is inscribed to Nathaniel Hawthorne.” The dedication appeared in the 1851 American edition and reflects the importance Melville attached to Hawthorne’s writing and friendship.

The two authors met in August 1850 near Lenox, Massachusetts, while Moby-Dick was being written. Melville had read Hawthorne’s collection Mosses from an Old Manse and soon published the admiring essay “Hawthorne and His Mosses.” He praised Hawthorne’s imaginative power and compared him favorably with Shakespeare and Dante.

The encounter may have encouraged Melville to deepen Moby-Dick from a comparatively straightforward sea adventure into a more expansive work of symbolism and philosophical inquiry. The novel’s dedication does not mean Hawthorne co-wrote or directly edited it; it is an expression of literary admiration and personal connection. Melville’s other New England contemporaries, including Emerson and Thoreau, influenced the era’s intellectual climate but were not the dedicatee.