Strange

Bartleby, the Scrivener

by Herman Melville

A Wall Street lawyer hires a pale, neat, quiet copyist who, asked one day to check a document, replies: “I would prefer not to.” After that he prefers not to do anything else. Melville’s story is funny, then strange, then very sad.

The librarian

Read it in the Library After Dark Or read it as plain text

Reading time

About an hour

Where to find it

The Evening Room

Edition

Project Gutenberg, eBook #11231. In the public domain in the United States.