Contains a collection of short novels by Herman Melville, with critical explanatory annotation, and includes the stories: "Bartleby, "The Scrivener", "Billy Budd", and "Benito Cereno.".
Presents Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener," in which Bartleby, a copyist at a New York City law office, begins to inexplicably refuse work with the line "I would prefer not to"; and "Benito Cereno," a story of rebellion aboard a slave ship.
