Herman Melville’s enduringly comic and affecting tale of a man who takes quiet quitting to extreme limits A new office clerk in a Wall Street lawyer’s office is the cause for quiet dismay when he refuses to do his job. But how to deal with Bartleby, The Scrivener, especially when he refuses to leave the office altogether…. BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days