Bartleby the Scrivener
A Story of Wall Street
$21.90
- Paperback
80 pages
- Release Date
1 December 2010
Summary
THE ART OF THE NOVELLA SERIESPlt;bPgt;Pquot;I prefer not to,Pquot; he respectfully and slowly said, and mildly disappeared.Plt;/bPgt;Plt;brPgt;Plt;brPgt;Academics hail it as the beginning of modernism, but to readers around the worldP#8212;even those daunted by Plt;iPgt;Moby-DickPlt;/iPgt;P#8212;Plt;iPgt;Bartleby the ScrivenerP#160;Plt;/iPgt;is simply one of the most absorbing and moving novellas ever. Set in the mid-19th century on New York CityP#8217;s Wall Street, it was also, perhaps, Herman MelvilleP#39;s most prescient story: What if a young man caught up in the rat race of commerce finally just said, Pquot;I would prefer not toPquot;?Plt;brPgt;Plt;brPgt;The tale is one of the final works of fiction published by Melville before, slipping into despair over the continuing critical dismissal of his work after Plt;iPgt;Moby-DickPlt;/iPgt;, he abandoned publishing fiction. The work is presented here exactly as it was originally published in Plt;iPgt;PutnamPlt;/iPgt;P#39;s magazineP#8212;to, sadly, critical disdain.Plt;brPgt;Plt;brPgt;Plt;bPgt;The Art of The Novella SeriesPlt;brPgt;Plt;brPgt; Plt;/bPgt;Too short to be a novel, too long to be a short story, the novella is generally unrecognized by academics and publishers. Nonetheless, it is a form beloved and practiced by literatureP#39;s greatest writers. In the Art of the Novella series, Melville House celebrates this renegade art form and its practitioners with titles that are, in many instances, presented in book form for the first time.
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780974607801 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 0974607800 |
| Author: | Herman Melville |
| Publisher: | Melville House Publishing |
| Imprint: | Melville House Publishing |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 80 |
| Release Date: | 1 December 2010 |
| Weight: | 92g |
| Dimensions: | 127mm x 178mm |
| Series: | Art of the Novel |
| Audience Age: | 14-18 |
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Critics Review
“I’ve always been haunted by Bartleby, the proto-slacker. But it’s the handsomely minimalist cover of the Melville House edition that gets me here, one of many in the small publisher’s fine ‘Art of the Novella’ series.”
—The New Yorker
Praise for the Art of the Novella Series
“I wanted them all, even those I’d already read.” —Ron Rosenbaum, The New York Observer
“Small wonders.”
—Time Out London
“[F]irst-rate…astutely selected and attractively packaged…indisputably great works.”
—Adam Begley, The New York Observer
“The Art of the Novella series is sort of an anti-Kindle. What these singular, distinctive titles celebrate is book-ness. They’re slim enough to be portable but showy enough to be conspicuously consumed—tiny little objects that demand to be loved for the commodities they are.”
—KQED (NPR San Francisco)
“Some like it short, and if you’re one of them, Melville House, an independent publisher based in Brooklyn, has a line of books for you… elegant-looking paperback editions …a good read in a small package.”
—The Wall Street Journal
Herman Melville
Plt;bPgt;Herman MelvillePlt;/bPgt; was born in New York City in 1819. At eighteen he set sail on a whaler, and upon his return, wrote a series of bestselling adventure novels based on his travels, including Plt;iPgt;TypeePlt;/iPgt; and Plt;iPgt;OmooPlt;/iPgt;, which made him famous. Starting with Plt;iPgt;Moby-DickPlt;/iPgt; in 1851, however, his increasingly complex and challenging work drew more and more negative criticism, until 1857 when, after his collection Plt;iPgt;Piazza TalesPlt;/iPgt; (which included Plt;iPgt;Bartleby the ScrivenerPlt;/iPgt;), and the novel Plt;iPgt;The Confidence ManPlt;/iPgt;, Melville stopped publishing fiction. He drifted into obscurity, writing poetry and working for the Customs House in New York City, until his death in 1891.
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