Herman Melville's enduringly comic and affecting tale of a man who takes quiet quitting to its extreme A new clerk in a Wall Street lawyer’s office causes dismay and confusion when, after a productive start, he suddenly refuses to do his job. But how to deal with Bartleby, the Scrivener, when he refuses to leave the office altogether? BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days