Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener and Benito Cereno (Cliffs Notes) - Softcover

Snodgrass, Mary Ellen

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9780822002208: Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener and Benito Cereno (Cliffs Notes)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822002205 ISBN 13: 9780822002208

Publisher: Cliffs Notes, 1992

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These two longer short stories deal with men in commerce on Wall Street and men at sea, both involved in struggles for power and the creation of a livable ethic.

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About the Author:

Herman Melville (1819 - 1891)

Herman Melville (August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick. His first three books gained much contemporary attention (the first, Typee, became a bestseller), but after a fast-blooming literary success in the late 1840s, his popularity declined precipitously in the mid-1850s and never recovered during his lifetime.

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

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