Bartleby, the Scrivener, is the last of the
Piazza Tales, a volume of six stories by Herman Melville. A lawyer
hires Bartleby as a copyist. Bartleby is quiet and
strange, but extremely diligent on his only task of copying legal documents. To the lawyer's surprise, when Bartleby is asked to do anything other than copy, he replies only, "I would prefer not to."
Soon, he prefers not to leave, and begins to live in the office. Baffled, the lawyer moves his office to another building. The new tenant arrests Bartleby arrested as a tramp. He dies in prison within days, resisting even the attempts of his former employer to help him. The lawyer later hears that Bartleby had previously worked in the Dead Letter Office in Washington, and ponders on the significance of Bartleby's strange behaviour.
An impact that Melville tries to impart, is the effect on the changing world, including population growth and emerging high technology.