Bartleby the Scrivener

Herman Melville was born in New York City on 1st August 1819. At the age of 7 Melville contracted scarlet fever which permanently diminished his eyesight. Add this to a contemporary description of being "very backwards in speech and somewhat slow in comprehension", and his opportunities for success seemed limited. His father died when he was 12, leaving the family in very straitened times. Two years later Melville took a job in a bank and followed up with a failed stint as a surveyor. He went to sea and travelled across to Liverpool and then to the Pacific on adventures, which included a mutiny, being jailed and falling in love with a South Pacific beauty. He was also a figure of opposition to the coercion of native Hawaiians to the Christian religion. These experiences helped provide the novels ‘Typee’, ‘Omoo’, and ‘White-Jacket’. By 1851 his ambitious masterpiece ‘Moby Dick’ was ready to be published. It never sold out its initial print run of 3,000 and Melville’s earnings on his mas