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Ch. 1: Loomings Segment 1 of 9
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Melville built Moby Dick to resist easy reading — and that resistance makes it the library's hardest typing challenge. The full novel runs over 206,000 words and shifts from drama to essay to encyclopaedia entry without warning; the three passages here sample its densest prose — about 665 words, roughly 17 minutes at 40 WPM. Nautical vocabulary — "bowsprit", "quarterdeck", "harpooner", "forecastle" — forces your fingers into letter combinations that appear nowhere else in English typing practice. Some chapters run as pure philosophy, others as stage scripts with character names and speech marks. That structural variety prevents the muscle-memory grooves that make comfortable practice feel deceptively fast. Recommended only after you've already hit 50+ WPM on shorter novels. The payoff is a typing range and stamina that no test-based trainer can replicate. Progress saves to your browser after every segment.
Also try: A Tale of Two Cities · The War of the Worlds · All 20 books
This practice set contains 3 passages from Moby Dick by Herman Melville, split into 9 typing segments — about 666 words, roughly 17 minutes of typing at 40 WPM. Your position saves in your browser after every segment, so you can stop and resume without an account.
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.
— Moby Dick, Herman Melville