Academics hail it as the beginning of modernism, but to readers around the world - even those daunted by Moby Dick - Bartleby the Scrivener is simply one of the most absorbing and moving novellas ever. set in the mid-19 century on new York City's Wall Street, it was also, perhaps Herman Melville's most prescient story: what if a young man caught up in the rat race of commerce finally just said, "I would prefer not to"? Text source: Introduction into Bartleby The Scrivener.