by Herman Melville (1853)

This novel, actually a long short story, tells the tale of a young copyist whose addition to a small Manhattan law office becomes a saga of inaction and a very slow, perplexing death. Bartleby, though not a lawyer, has become the patron antihero of every lawyer stuck in the cycle of due diligence and contract legal work.

Note: Bartleby was originally published in two parts in Putnam’s Magazine.