Each year, readers and Melville enthusiasts from around the world gather in New Bedford for the annual Moby-Dick Marathon—a 25-hour celebration of Herman Melville’s literary masterpiece. In the 2024 event, chapters 7 through 9 were read inside the historic Seamen’s Bethel, the very setting that inspired Melville’s famous “Whaleman’s Chapel.”
These passages—beginning at 02:03:00.599 (Chapter 7), 02:10:59.079 (Chapter 8), and 02:17:49.679 (Chapter 9)—bring the story full circle, connecting Melville’s words to the place where his imagination first took root. Experience the echoes of literature and history intertwined within the sacred walls of the Seamen’s Bethel.