Bartleby, the Scrivener

by Herman Melville · 1853

A Wall Street lawyer is confounded by a copyist who answers every request with 'I would prefer not to,' and slowly withdraws from life. Melville's haunting tale of passive refusal.

Books mentioned in Bartleby, the Scrivener (2)

• The Freedom of the Will by Jonathan Edwards: “at leisure intervals I looked a little into “Edwards on the Will,” and “Priestly on Necessity.””
• The Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity Illustrated by Joseph Priestley: “at leisure intervals I looked a little into “Edwards on the Will,” and “Priestly on Necessity.””

Books that mention Bartleby, the Scrivener (4)

• 2666 by Roberto Bolaño: “He chose The Metamorphosis over The Trial, he chose Bartleby over Moby-Dick, he chose A Simple Heart over Bouvard and Pécuchet.”
• Fury by Salman Rushdie: “we may use our own world's models here, for the sake of easy comparison—Bartleby the Scrivener, who preferred not to.”
• Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose: “In Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener," nearly all of Bartleby's demurrals and refusals are given separate paragraphs.”
• The Naive and the Sentimental Novelist by Orhan Pamuk: “in a foreword he wrote for Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener, Borges describes how the reader gradually reaches the heart of Moby-Dick”