This image is the cover for the book Bartleby, the Scrivener A Story of Wall-Street, Classics To Go

Bartleby, the Scrivener A Story of Wall-Street, Classics To Go

Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street" is a short story by the American writer Herman Melville. In the story, a Wall Street lawyer hires a new clerk who, after an initial bout of hard work, refuses to make copies or do any other task required of him, refusing with the words "I would prefer not to." Numerous critical essays have been published about the story, which scholar Robert Milder describes as "unquestionably the masterpiece of the short fiction" in the Melville canon.

Herman Melville

Herman Melville (born Melvill; (August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are Moby-Dick (1851); Typee (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia; and Billy Budd, Sailor, a posthumously published novella. Although his reputation was not high at the time of his death, the centennial of his birth in 1919 was the starting point of a Melville revival, and Moby-Dick grew to be considered one of the great American novels.

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