Over the past thirty-five years, we had often been asked about the name “Bartleby Press.” Some people do get the obvious reference to “Bartleby the Scrivener” by Herman Melville, first serialized in Putnam’s Monthly Magazine in 1853 and a few years later included in a collection of Melville stories in The Piazza Tales. Of course, not only is the company name a homage of sorts to Melville’s tale, it led to the name of our website BartlebythePublisher.com and this space, “The Reluctant Blog.”
To celebrate our anniversary, we have issued a Commemorative edition of Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street. It includes the exact text as published in the original and is introduced by our Publisher, Jeremy Kay. He not only explains how he chose the name for our publishing enterprise, but reveals a few little-known details about Melville’s up and down literary history.
Order your copy here