This volume, first published in 1856, includes three of the tales widely considered to be among Melville-s masterpieces. In -Bartleby, the Scrivener-, a Wall Street lawyer hires a melancholy young clerk called Bartleby, whose sudden and mysterious refusal to work plunges the firm into disarray. -Benito Cereno- is the account of a mutiny on a slave ship, based on the real-life journals of an American sea captain. -The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles- is a series of sketches about the Gal-gos Islands which was a huge success with the reading public and contains some of Melville-s most celebrated prose.Also included in this volume are -The Lightning-Rod Man-, -The Bell Tower- and a story written especially for the collection, -The Piazza-. Taken together, these tales, in their masterful use of irony and concision, display the author of Moby Dick at his most uncompromising and compelling.
