Publisher's Synopsis
Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville "Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street" is a short story by the American writer Herman Melville (1819-1891). It first appeared anonymously in two parts in the November and December 1853 editions of Putnam's Magazine, and was reprinted with minor textual alterations in his The Piazza Tales in 1856. Herman Melville may have written the story as an emotional response to the fact that Pierre, his preceding novel, was published to bad reviews. Christopher Sten writes in "Bartleby, the Transcendentalist: Melville's Dead Letter to Emerson" Melville found inspiration in Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays, particularly "The Transcendentalist" which shows parallels to "Bartleby."
