Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas · Jules Verne, 1870
How big is the giant squid in Twenty Thousand Leagues?
8m
Eight metres long, with eight arms twice that length.
From the bookReal world
Off the Bahamas, seven giant squid swarm the Nautilus and one jams the propeller. The crew fight them on the platform with axes.
One man is pulled away screaming in French, and Nemo weeps. Where exactly the fight happens isn't given in the book, so its pin on the map is a guess.
See the squid fight