Bartleby, The Scrivener - Softcover

Melville, Herman

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1449995403 ISBN 13: 9781449995409

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2009

Synopsis

Herman Melville wrote Bartleby the Scrivener as an emotional response to the fact that his masterpiece Moby-Dick was not selling as well as he had expected. It was first published in the 1850s. Bartleby the Scrivener is now among the most notable of American short stories. It has been considered a precursor of absurdist literature, touching on several of Kafka's themes. The story has been adapted for film three times: in 1970, starring Paul Scofield; in France, in 1976, starring Michel Lonsdale; and in 2001, starring Crispin Glover.

About this title

About the Author:

Herman Melville is a well-known American novelist, essayist and poet. His poetry is not as highly critically esteemed as his fiction, although some critics place him as the first modernist poet in the United States.

Review:

(in full Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street) Short story by Herman Melville, published anonymously in 1853 in Putnam's Monthly Magazine. It was collected in his 1856 volume The Piazza Tales. Melville wrote "Bartleby" at a time when his career seemed to be in ruins, and the story reflects his pessimism. The narrator, a successful Wall Street lawyer, hires a scrivener named Bartleby to copy legal documents. Though Bartleby is initially a hard worker, one day, when asked to proofread, he responds, "I would prefer not to." As time progresses, Bartleby increasingly "prefers not to" do anything asked of him. Eventually he dies of self-neglect, refusing offers of help, while jailed for vagrancy. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1449995403
• ISBN 13: 9781449995409
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 76