Bartleby the Scrivener (Hesperus Classics)
Contributors: Patrick McGrath (Foreword)
Publisher: Hesperus Press
Published: October 28, 2007
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 184
ISBN-13: 9781843911562
Subjects: Modern fiction; Melville, Herman, 1819-1891; Fiction; Literature - Classics / Criticism; Literature: Classics; Classics; Fiction / Classics
Description: When a New York lawyer needs to take on another copyist, it is Bartleby who responds to his advertisement, and arrives "pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn." At first a diligent employee, he soon begins to refuse work, saying only "I would prefer not to." So begins the story of Bartleby-passive to the point of absurdity yet paradoxically extremely disruptive-which rapidly turns from farce to inexplicable tragedy. Accompanying Bartleby, Benito Cereno was first serialized in 1855, and centers around a slave rebellion on board a Spanish merchant ship in 1799.