Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener

Christopher Gonzalez (Ohio State University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.2: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Nineteenth Century, 1783-1900.
Vol. editors: J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1853

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Story

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After the financial and critical failure of his novels

Moby-Dick

(1851),

Pierre

(1852) and

Israel Potter

(1855), Herman Melville turned to writing stories and novellas. The first result was his pair of stories “The Paradise of Batchelors” and “The Tartarus of Maids” (1855) which offer brilliant satirical allegories on industrialisation, sexual social segregation, the paper industry and the hopelessness of writing. He then produced the novella “Bartleby, the Scrivener” — subtitled “A Story of Wall-Street” — which was serialised in

Putnam’s Monthly Magazine

in 1853 and then included in

The Piazza Tales

in 1856. “Bartleby” is tale which continues and extends the themes opened in “The Paradise of Batchelors” and “The Tartarus of Maids” but gives them much…

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2212 words

Citation: Gonzalez, Christopher. "Bartleby the Scrivener". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 23 February 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6453, accessed 24 November 2024.]

Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener

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