Bartleby, the Scrivener

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"Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street" is a short story by American writer Herman Melville, first serialized anonymously in two parts in the November and December 1853 issues of Putnam's Magazine and reprinted with minor textual alterations in his The Piazza Tales in 1856. In the story, a Wall Street lawyer hires a new clerk, who, after an initial bout of hard work, refuses to make copies or do any other task required of him, responding to any request with the words "I would prefer not to", which become all he says. The story is told by its narrator between 1848 (as it takes place after the death of John Jacob Astor) and 1853 (the year the story was first published). The instigating event in the story is the narrator being conferred the office of a Master of Chancery, indicating the action of the story takes place before 1847. Numerous critical essays have been published about the story; scholar Robert Milder describes the story as "unquestionably the masterpiece of the short...

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