The narrator, a successful Wall Street lawyer. Melville wrote Bartleby at a time when his career seemed to be in ruins, and the story reflects his pessimism.

It was collected in his 1856 volume The Piazza Tales. Yet the experience of reading and rereading the tale is as unforgettable as the narrator's own impression of this quintessentially modern character. Bartleby the Scrivener, in full Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street, short story by Herman Melville, published anonymously in 1853 in Putnam’s Monthly Magazine. The Lawyer tries another tact, asking Bartleby to run down to the post office for him, but again: 'I would prefer not to. In the 160 years or so since this story first appeared, attempts to decode its meanings have never ceased Bartleby, and the events that follow from his blank descent into pure torpor, defy precise interpretation. Bartleby again prefers not to examine his papers, and Turkey becomes enraged by it, threatening to beat up his reluctant fellow scrivener. While the other clerks are contemptuous, the lawyer cannot bring himself to fire this strange, listless man, or to abandon his efforts to reason with him-even when he discovers that Bartleby has begun to live at the office. Perplexed and oddly intrigued, the lawyer-who narrates the story-attempts to get to the bottom of Bartleby's refusals as the clerk more and more often states his preference 'not to,' ultimately doing little work and much staring out the window. Criticism has centered on analysis of both the narrator and Bartleby himself, taking up the question of whether or not the narrator ultimately fulfills his moral obligations to Bartleby. One day, however, when requested by his employer to assist with some routine proofreading, he declines, using his famous phrase. 'Bartleby, the Scrivener' is one of the most haunting tales of the nineteenth century. Silent and enigmatic, Bartleby performs well at first. 'I would prefer not to.' In this novella, widely considered one of the finest works of American literature, a lawyer hires the 'incurably forlorn' Bartleby as a clerk in his small firm.

Turkey bartleby the scrivener