{"product_id":"i-would-prefer-not-to-isbn-9781782277460","title":"I Would Prefer Not To","description":"\u003cb\u003eA new selection of Melville's darkest and most enthralling stories in a beautiful Pushkin Collection edition\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eIncludes \"Bartleby, the Scrivener\", \"Benito Cereno\" and \"The Lightning-Rod Man\"\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA lawyer hires a new copyist, only to be met with stubborn, confounding resistance. A nameless guide discovers hidden worlds of luxury and bleak exploitation. After boarding a beleaguered Spanish slave ship, an American trader's cheerful outlook is repeatedly shadowed by paralyzing unease. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn these stories of the surreal mundanity of office life and obscure tensions at sea, Melville's darkly modern sensibility plunges us into a world of irony and mystery, where nothing is as it first appears.\"Melville instinctively aspired to the grandest scale, and even in his shorter works offers vast inklings and the resonance of cosmic concerns.\" \u003cb\u003e-- John Updike\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Melville seems to promise the very stuff of existence: time, space, air. We don't so much read him as inhale him.\" \u003cb\u003e-- Geoffrey O'Brien, \u003ci\u003eVillage Voice\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"There are very few stories that, on re-reading after re-reading, seem to become impossibly more perfect, but Herman Melville's eerie, aching story 'Bartleby, the Scrivener' is one such.\" \u003cb\u003e-- Stuart Kelly, \u003ci\u003eGuardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eHerman  Melville was born to a merchant family in New York City in 1819. His  father died suddenly in 1832, and Melville took jobs as a bank clerk, a  farmhand and a teacher to make ends meet. In 1839, he embarked on the  first in a series of sea voyages that would provide him with inspiration  for his novels \u003ci\u003eTypee\u003c\/i\u003e (1846), \u003ci\u003eOmoo\u003c\/i\u003e (1847) and his great masterpiece, \u003ci\u003eMoby-Dick \u003c\/i\u003e(1851).  Following poor sales and hostile reviews, Melville largely abandoned  fiction writing after 1857, turning to poetry and a career as a customs  inspector on the New York docks. He died in relative obscurity in 1891.BARTLEBY, THE SCRIVENER\u003cbr\u003eA Story of Wall-Street\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI am a rather elderly man. The nature of my\u003cbr\u003eavocations for the last thirty years has brought\u003cbr\u003eme into more than ordinary contact with what would\u003cbr\u003eseem an interesting and somewhat singular set of men,\u003cbr\u003eof whom as yet nothing that I know of has ever been\u003cbr\u003ewritten: – I mean the law-copyists or scriveners. I have\u003cbr\u003eknown very many of them, professionally and privately,\u003cbr\u003eand if I pleased, could relate divers histories, at which\u003cbr\u003egood-natured gentlemen might smile, and sentimental\u003cbr\u003esouls might weep. But I waive the biographies of\u003cbr\u003eall other scriveners for a few passages in the life of\u003cbr\u003eBartleby, who was a scrivener the strangest I ever saw\u003cbr\u003eor heard of. While of other law-copyists I might write\u003cbr\u003ethe complete life, of Bartleby nothing of that sort can\u003cbr\u003ebe done. I believe that no materials exist for a full and\u003cbr\u003esatisfactory biography of this man. It is an irreparable\u003cbr\u003eloss to literature. Bartleby was one of those beings of\u003cbr\u003ewhom nothing is ascertainable, except from the original\u003cbr\u003esources, and in his case those are very small. What my\u003cbr\u003eown astonished eyes saw of Bartleby, that is all I know\u003cbr\u003eof him, except, indeed, one vague report which will\u003cbr\u003eappear in the sequel.\u003cbr\u003eEre introducing the scrivener, as he first appeared to\u003cbr\u003eme, it is fit I make some mention of myself, my employés,\u003cbr\u003emy business, my chambers, and general surroundings;\u003cbr\u003ebecause some such description is indispensable to an\u003cbr\u003eadequate understanding of the chief character about\u003cbr\u003eto be presented.\u003cbr\u003eImprimis: I am a man who, from his youth upwards,\u003cbr\u003ehas been filled with a profound conviction that the\u003cbr\u003eeasiest way of life is the best. Hence, though I belong\u003cbr\u003eto a profession proverbially energetic and nervous, even\u003cbr\u003eto turbulence, at times, yet nothing of that sort have\u003cbr\u003eI ever suffered to invade my peace. I am one of those\u003cbr\u003eunambitious lawyers who never addresses a jury, or in\u003cbr\u003eany way draws down public applause; but in the cool\u003cbr\u003etranquillity of a snug retreat, do a snug business among\u003cbr\u003erich men’s bonds and mortgages and title-deeds. All\u003cbr\u003ewho know me, consider me an eminently safe man. The\u003cbr\u003elate John Jacob Astor, a personage little given to poetic\u003cbr\u003eenthusiasm, had no hesitation in pronouncing my first\u003cbr\u003egrand point to be prudence; my next, method. I do\u003cbr\u003enot speak it in vanity, but simply record the fact, that\u003cbr\u003eI was not unemployed in my profession by the late John\u003cbr\u003eJacob Astor; a name which, I admit, I love to repeat,\u003cbr\u003efor it hath a rounded and orbicular sound to it, and\u003cbr\u003erings like unto bullion. I will freely add, that I was not\u003cbr\u003einsensible to the late John Jacob Astor’s good opinion.\u003cbr\u003eSome time prior to the period at which this little history\u003cbr\u003ebegins, my avocations had been largely increased.\u003cbr\u003eThe good old office, now extinct in the State of New-\u003cbr\u003eYork, of a Master in Chancery, had been conferred\u003cbr\u003eupon me. It was not a very arduous office, but very\u003cbr\u003epleasantly remunerative. I seldom lose my temper;\u003cbr\u003emuch more seldom indulge in dangerous indignation\u003cbr\u003eat wrongs and outrages; but I must be permitted to be\u003cbr\u003erash here and declare, that I consider the sudden and\u003cbr\u003eviolent abrogation of the office of Master in Chancery,\u003cbr\u003eby the new Constitution, as a – premature act; inasmuch\u003cbr\u003eas I had counted upon a life-lease of the profits,\u003cbr\u003ewhereas I only received those of a few short years. But\u003cbr\u003ethis is by the way.\u003cbr\u003eMy chambers were up stairs at No. – Wall-street.\u003cbr\u003eAt one end they looked upon the white wall of the\u003cbr\u003einterior of a spacious skylight shaft, penetrating the\u003cbr\u003ebuilding from top to bottom. This view might have\u003cbr\u003ebeen considered rather tame than otherwise, deficient\u003cbr\u003ein what landscape painters call “life.” But if so, the view\u003cbr\u003efrom the other end of my chambers offered, at least, a\u003cbr\u003econtrast, if nothing more. In that direction my windows\u003cbr\u003ecommanded an unobstructed view of a lofty brick wall,\u003cbr\u003eblack by age and everlasting shade; which wall required\u003cbr\u003eno spy-glass to bring out its lurking beauties, but for the\u003cbr\u003ebenefit of all near-sighted spectators, was pushed up to\u003cbr\u003ewithin ten feet of my window panes. Owing to the great\u003cbr\u003eheight of the surrounding buildings, and my chambers\u003cbr\u003ebeing on the second floor, the interval between this wall\u003cbr\u003eand mine not a little resembled a huge square cistern.\u003cbr\u003eAt the period just preceding the advent of Bartleby,\u003cbr\u003eI had two persons as copyists in my employment, and\u003cbr\u003ea promising lad as an office-boy. First, Turkey; second,\u003cbr\u003eNippers; third, Ginger Nut. These may seem names,\u003cbr\u003ethe like of which are not usually found in the Directory.\u003cbr\u003eIn truth they were nicknames, mutually conferred upon\u003cbr\u003eeach other by my three clerks, and were deemed expressive\u003cbr\u003eof their respective persons or characters. Turkey\u003cbr\u003ewas a short, pursy Englishman of about my own age,\u003cbr\u003ethat is, somewhere not far from sixty. In the morning,\u003cbr\u003eone might say, his face was of a fine florid hue, but after\u003cbr\u003etwelve o’clock, meridian – his dinner hour – it blazed\u003cbr\u003elike a grate full of Christmas coals; and continued\u003cbr\u003eblazing – but, as it were, with a gradual wane – till 6\u003cbr\u003eo’clock, p.m. or thereabouts, after which I saw no more\u003cbr\u003eof the proprietor of the face, which gaining its meridian\u003cbr\u003ewith the sun, seemed to set with it, to rise, culminate,\u003cbr\u003eand decline the following day, with the like regularity\u003cbr\u003eand undiminished glory. There are many singular\u003cbr\u003ecoincidences I have known in the course of my life, not\u003cbr\u003ethe least among which was the fact, that exactly when\u003cbr\u003eTurkey displayed his fullest beams from his red and radiant\u003cbr\u003ecountenance, just then, too, at that critical moment,\u003cbr\u003ebegan the daily period when I considered his business\u003cbr\u003ecapacities as seriously disturbed for the remainder of\u003cbr\u003ethe twenty-four hours. Not that he was absolutely idle,\u003cbr\u003eor averse to business then; far from it. The difficulty\u003cbr\u003ewas, he was apt to be altogether too energetic. There\u003cbr\u003ewas a strange, inflamed, flurried, flighty recklessness\u003cbr\u003eof activity about him. He would be incautious in dipping\u003cbr\u003ehis pen into his inkstand. All his blots upon my\u003cbr\u003edocuments, were dropped there after twelve o’clock,\u003cbr\u003emeridian. Indeed, not only would he be reckless and\u003cbr\u003esadly given to making blots in the afternoon, but some\u003cbr\u003edays he went further, and was rather noisy. At such\u003cbr\u003etimes, too, his face flamed with augmented blazonry,\u003cbr\u003eas if cannel coal had been heaped on anthracite. He\u003cbr\u003emade an unpleasant racket with his chair; spilled his\u003cbr\u003esand-box; in mending his pens, impatiently split them\u003cbr\u003eall to pieces, and threw them on the floor in a sudden\u003cbr\u003epassion; stood up and leaned over his table, boxing his\u003cbr\u003epapers about in a most indecorous manner, very sad to\u003cbr\u003ebehold in an elderly man like him. Nevertheless, as he\u003cbr\u003ewas in many ways a most valuable person to me, and\u003cbr\u003eall the time before twelve o’clock, meridian, was the\u003cbr\u003equickest, steadiest creature too, accomplishing a great\u003cbr\u003edeal of work in a style not easy to be matched – for\u003cbr\u003ethese reasons, I was willing to overlook his eccentricities,\u003cbr\u003ethough indeed, occasionally, I remonstrated with him.\u003cbr\u003eI did this very gently, however, because, though the\u003cbr\u003ecivilest, nay, the blandest and most reverential of men\u003cbr\u003ein the morning, yet in the afternoon he was disposed,\u003cbr\u003eupon provocation, to be slightly rash with his tongue,\u003cbr\u003ein fact, insolent. Now, valuing his morning services as\u003cbr\u003eI did, and resolved not to lose them; yet, at the same\u003cbr\u003etime made uncomfortable by his inflamed ways after\u003cbr\u003etwelve o’clock; and being a man of peace, unwilling\u003cbr\u003eby my admonitions to call forth unseemly retorts from\u003cbr\u003ehim; I took upon me, one Saturday noon (he was always\u003cbr\u003eworse on Saturdays), to hint to him, very kindly, that\u003cbr\u003eperhaps now that he was growing old, it might be well\u003cbr\u003eto abridge his labors; in short, he need not come to\u003cbr\u003emy chambers after twelve o’clock, but, dinner over,\u003cbr\u003ehad best go home to his lodgings and rest himself till\u003cbr\u003etea-time. But no; he insisted upon his afternoon devotions.\u003cbr\u003eHis countenance became intolerably fervid, as\u003cbr\u003ehe oratorically assured me – gesticulating with a long\u003cbr\u003eruler at the other end of the room – that if his services\u003cbr\u003ein the morning were useful, how indispensable, then,\u003cbr\u003ein the afternoon?A new selection of Melville’s greatest shorter works, collected in a beautiful edition.","brand":"Pushkin Collection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302770135269,"sku":"NP9781782277460","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781782277460.jpg?v=1767729742","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/i-would-prefer-not-to-isbn-9781782277460","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}