Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street

Bartleby the Scrivener is a short story, or novella, set in a Wall Street law office in the mid nineteenth century. The narrator, a careful and comfortable lawyer, hires a quiet copyist named Bartleby to join his small staff. At first Bartleby works steadily, but he soon begins to meet ordinary requests with a calm, polite refusal.

The lawyer's puzzled efforts to deal with him form the heart of the tale. It is a darkly funny and unsettling study of work, duty, charity and the limits of understanding another person.