classic fiction audiobook
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville is about 24 hours long at normal speed. At 1.5× that drops to about 16 hr, and at 2× to about 12 hr.
Runtimes are approximate and vary slightly by edition and retailer. Check the length shown in Audible, Libby, Spotify or Apple Books for your copy.
| Playback speed | Total time |
|---|---|
| 0.8× | 30 hr |
| 1× | 24 hr |
| 1.25× | 19 hr 12 min |
| 1.5× | 16 hr |
| 1.75× | 13 hr 43 min |
| 2× | 12 hr |
| 2.5× | 9 hr 36 min |
| 3× | 8 hr |
Plan your listen
At one hour a day and normal speed, you'll finish in about 24 days. Speed it up to 1.5× and the same hour a day finishes it in about 16 days. At 45 minutes a day and 1.5×, plan on about 22 days.
The table below shows whole days needed for every combination of speed and daily listening time.
| Speed | 15 min | 30 min | 45 min | 1 hr | 1.5 hr | 2 hr |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1× | 96 | 48 | 32 | 24 | 16 | 12 |
| 1.25× | 77 | 39 | 26 | 20 | 13 | 10 |
| 1.5× | 64 | 32 | 22 | 16 | 11 | 8 |
| 2× | 48 | 24 | 16 | 12 | 8 | 6 |
How long, really
At 24 hr, Moby-Dick is roughly a full day of non-stop listening, a road trip from Seattle to Denver. That's longer than about 88% of the 169 popular audiobooks we list.
Spoken at an average narration pace, Moby-Dick comes to roughly 223,000 words. Narrators vary, so a faster or slower reader will shift that number and the total runtime.
Want to try other speeds or your own schedule? Use the audiobook speed calculator or the listening goal calculator to find the daily minutes you need.
Track it as you listen
Booktrace is an iPhone audiobook tracker that logs your sessions, chapters, narrator and playback speed in one place, so you can see real progress through Moby-Dick and how many hours remain, whichever app you listen in.
Common questions
The Moby-Dick audiobook by Herman Melville runs about 24 hours at normal (1x) speed. Exact runtime can differ by a few minutes between editions and stores.
At 1.5x speed, Moby-Dick takes about 16 hours. At 2x it takes about 12 hours.
At one hour a day and normal speed, Moby-Dick takes about 24 days. At 1.5x speed and an hour a day it takes about 16 days. At 30 minutes a day and normal speed it takes about 48 days.
Compared with the 169 popular audiobooks on this site, Moby-Dick is longer than about 88% of them. At 24 hr it is roughly a full day of non-stop listening, a road trip from Seattle to Denver.
