Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street is a novella by Herman Melville, first published in 1853 and collected in The Piazza Tales in 1856. A Wall Street lawyer hires a quiet copyist, Bartleby, who one day begins politely refusing to do any work at all. This strange, haunting tale is now one of Melville's most admired works.
The story
The narrator, an elderly lawyer, already employs two eccentric copyists, Turkey and Nippers. Bartleby at first copies tirelessly.
Then he begins to refuse every request with the same polite formula. He stops working, stays in the office day and night, and will not leave even when the lawyer moves.
An enigma
Bartleby never explains himself. The narrator oscillates between irritation, pity and guilt, and cannot bring himself to throw him out.
Readers have seen in Bartleby a figure of passive resistance, despair, depression or the alienation of modern office work.
The dead letters
In the epilogue, the narrator hears a rumour that Bartleby once worked in the Dead Letter Office in Washington, handling letters that never reached anyone.
This final image of undelivered letters gives the whole story its deep and lasting melancholy.
Anecdotes
After Moby-Dick
Melville wrote Bartleby after the commercial failure of Moby-Dick and Pierre, when he turned to magazine stories to earn a living.
Putnam's Magazine
The story first appeared anonymously in two parts in Putnam's Monthly Magazine in November and December 1853.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Bartleby?
A copyist who politely refuses to work.
Where is the story set?
In a law office on Wall Street, New York.
When was it first published?
In 1853.