Piazza Tales

Herman Melville's tale of corporate discontent, Bartleby, the Scrivener, tells the story of a quiet, hardworking legal copyist who works in an office in the Wall Street area of New York City. The business where he works handles the official financial paperwork of wealthy men. One day, Bartleby's employer requests he proofread one of the documents he has copied. Bartleby declines the assignment with the inscrutable “I would prefer not,” the first of what will become many refusals. The utterance of this remark sets off a confounding set of actions and behavior, making the unsettling character of Bartleby one of Melville's most enigmatic and unforgettable creations.

Chosen for inclusion in William Evans Burton's “Cyclopediae of Wit and Humor of 1857”, with an illustration by Henry Louis Stephens, “The Lightning-Rod Man” was the one Melville tale to be available throughout his lifetime, thanks to reissues of this volume. More a parable than a character-driven story, The Lightning-rod man is a charlatan who tries to profit by selling fearful people lightning-rods during thunderstorms. The narrator has a difficult encounter with the Lightning-Rod man in this story about overcoming fear and superstition.

‘The Encantadas (or Enchanted Isles)’ is a series of ten descriptive sketches, and a reminiscence from Melville's sailor days revealing the ecologically pristine Galapagos Islands as both enchanting and horrifying. Containing some of Melville's most memorable prose, ‘The Encantadas’ were a critical success at a time when Melville's fortunes were down. After publication, the New York Dispatch cited the chapters as universally considered among the most interesting papers of that popular Magazine, and each successive chapter was read with avidity by thousands. The reviewer called the sketches a sort of mixture of 'Mardi' and 'Robinson Crusoe'-though far more interesting than the first named work.

Written as an introductory story to “The Piazza Tales”, the protagonist of “The Piazza”, idealizes a radiant spot on the mountain he looks upon from his piazza. Traveling to the spot he realizes it is a house, occupied by the unhappy girl Marianna, who longs to see the lucky individual who lives in the white house she looks upon from her window. The narrator realizes he has been the object of a fantasy alike to his own, and leaves thinking how all idealism is an illusion.

Considered to be the least characteristic of Melville's stories, somewhat resembling the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe, The Bell-Tower is a dark literary work that explores, though never fully reveals, its central mystery. An eccentric artist and architect dreams up plans for a magnificent bell tower. After receiving approval from the city, he happily begins construction. When city residents begin to notice strange occurrences associated with the project, their complaints eventually force the city magistrates to investigate. Showing the magistrates around the tower, the artist proudly shows off his work and answers their questions, but one curiosity remains unanswered-what lies beneath the shroud in the bell-tower?