Bartleby The Scrivener and Other StoriesThe Lightning-Rod Man, The Bell-Tower

Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener is a classic American short story, a strange tale of a constantly busy copyist whose simple refrain, “I would prefer not to,” wreaks havoc on his workplace. Invention, imagination, and expression combine with two other stories from Melville’s The Piazza Tales: The Lightning-Rod and The Bell-Tower. A companion to the highly-praised collection Classic American Short Stories also performed by William Roberts, and including An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce