Bartleby and Benito Cereno

Paperback, 104 pages

English language

Published Oct. 21, 1990 by Dover Publications.

ISBN:: 978-0-486-26473-8
OCLC Number:: 1083420388

(2 reviews)

Herman Melville towers among American writers not only for his powerful novels, but also for the stirring novellas and short stories that flowed from his pen. Two of the most admired of these — "Bartleby" and "Benito Cereno" — first appeared as magazine pieces and were then published in 1856 as part of a collection of short stories entitled The Piazza Tales.

"Bartleby" (also known as "Bartleby the Scrivener") is an intriguing moral allegory set in the business world of mid-19th-century New York. A strange, enigmatic man employed as a clerk in a legal office, Bartleby forces his employer to come to grips with the most basic questions of human responsibility, and haunts the latter's conscience, even after Bartleby's dismissal.

"Benito Cereno," considered one of Melville's best short stories, deals with a bloody slave revolt on a Spanish vessel. A splendid parable of man's struggle against the forces of evil, …

Herman Melville towers among American writers not only for his powerful novels, but also for the stirring novellas and short stories that flowed from his pen. Two of the most admired of these — "Bartleby" and "Benito Cereno" — first appeared as magazine pieces and were then published in 1856 as part of a collection of short stories entitled The Piazza Tales.

"Bartleby" (also known as "Bartleby the Scrivener") is an intriguing moral allegory set in the business world of mid-19th-century New York. A strange, enigmatic man employed as a clerk in a legal office, Bartleby forces his employer to come to grips with the most basic questions of human responsibility, and haunts the latter's conscience, even after Bartleby's dismissal.

"Benito Cereno," considered one of Melville's best short stories, deals with a bloody slave revolt on a Spanish vessel. A splendid parable of man's struggle against the forces of evil, the carefully developed and mysteriously guarded plot builds to a dramatic climax while revealing the horror and depravity of which man is capable.

Reprinted here from standard texts in a finely made, yet inexpensive new edition, these stories offer the general reader and students of Melville and American literature sterling examples of a literary giant at his story-telling best. --back cover

4 editions

Bridgman reviewed Bartleby and Benito Cereno by Herman Melville (Dover Thrift Editions)

Review of 'Bartleby and Benito Cereno' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

There's some trend in cooking called "slow food" which is the name of an organization promoting getting away from fast food by using traditional cooking methods and ingredients. I think of it when I read things by [a:Herman Melville|1624|Herman Melville|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1495029910p2/1624.jpg] and others like him. Reading him slows you down. The prose is dense enough that it's almost like reading philosophy. This is good.
Bartleby, often called Bartleby the Scrivener, and Benito Cereno were both published in 1856 in a short story collection after having first been in magazines. Bartleby is the more famous of the two, and I can see why. It's more in sync with the existential angst of any era and in this one reads like a 19th-century version of Office Space, which made me smile at times. Benito Cereno doesn't get the attention I think it should. It has a plot twist …

There's some trend in cooking called "slow food" which is the name of an organization promoting getting away from fast food by using traditional cooking methods and ingredients. I think of it when I read things by [a:Herman Melville|1624|Herman Melville|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1495029910p2/1624.jpg] and others like him. Reading him slows you down. The prose is dense enough that it's almost like reading philosophy. This is good.
Bartleby, often called Bartleby the Scrivener, and Benito Cereno were both published in 1856 in a short story collection after having first been in magazines. Bartleby is the more famous of the two, and I can see why. It's more in sync with the existential angst of any era and in this one reads like a 19th-century version of Office Space, which made me smile at times. Benito Cereno doesn't get the attention I think it should. It has a plot twist that I figured out long before, I think, readers of the day would have. I don't mean to pat myself on the back, though. It's just that I—and you—have been exposed to 150 more years of plot twists than people in Melville's day were. Think of all the movies with them: The Usual Suspects, The Crying Game, The Sixth Sense, Fight Club, Get Out, and Psycho are just a few examples. Despite that, it's worth reading more now than as a many other times because it deals with slavery. Also, it could be rewritten for a Star Trek episode that would be so good I'm surprised it hasn't been done yet.

"Why do you refuse?" (Narrator)
"I would prefer not to." (Bartleby)
With any other man I should have flown outright into a dreadful passion, scorned all further words, and thrust him ignominiously from my presence. But there was something about Bartleby that not only strangely disarmed me, but, in a wonderful manner, touched and disconcerted me. I began to reason with him.

martina.pugliese reviewed Bartleby and Benito Cereno by Herman Melville (Dover Thrift Editions)

Review of 'Bartleby and Benito Cereno' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Testo molto interessante e dal senso ambiguo. Alcuni dicono che sia un'allegoria del razzismo americano.

Subjects

Young men -- Fiction.
Copyists -- Fiction.
New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction.
Wall Street (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction.