Bartleby, the Scrivener: An Introduction

The Narrator's Background

• The narrator is an elderly man who has been in contact with law-copyists or scriveners for the last 30 years.
• He has known many scriveners professionally and privately, and could relate many stories about them.
• He waives the biographies of other scriveners to focus on Bartleby, a unique scrivener.

Bartleby

• Bartleby is a scrivener of the strangest kind that the narrator has ever seen or heard of.
• There is no material available for a full and satisfactory biography of Bartleby, making it an irreparable loss to literature.
• The only information available about Bartleby is what the narrator has seen with his own eyes and one vague report.

The Narrator's Profession

• The narrator is a lawyer who has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best.
• He belongs to a profession that is proverbially energetic and nervous, but he has never suffered from turbulence.
• He is an unambitious lawyer who does a quiet business among rich men's bonds and mortgages and title-deeds.

The Narrator's Characteristics

• The narrator is considered an eminently safe man by those who know him.
• He is known for his prudence and method, as pronounced by the late John Jacob Astor.

The Narrator's Office

• The narrator held the office of Master in Chancery, which was not very arduous but pleasantly remunerative.
• The office was abolished by the new Constitution, which the narrator considers a premature act.

The Narrator's Chambers

• The narrator's chambers were located upstairs at No.—Wall-street.
• One end of the chambers looked upon a white wall of a spacious sky-light shaft, while the other end offered a view of a lofty brick wall.