{"product_id":"i-would-prefer-not-to-essential-stories-9781782277460","title":"I Would Prefer Not to: Essential Stories","description":"\u003cb\u003eA new selection of Melville's darkest and most enthralling stories in a beautiful Pushkin Collection edition\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eIncludes \"Bartleby, the Scrivener\", \"Benito Cereno\" and \"The Lightning-Rod Man\"\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA lawyer hires a new copyist, only to be met with stubborn, confounding resistance. A nameless guide discovers hidden worlds of luxury and bleak exploitation. After boarding a beleaguered Spanish slave ship, an American trader's cheerful outlook is repeatedly shadowed by paralyzing unease. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn these stories of the surreal mundanity of office life and obscure tensions at sea, Melville's darkly modern sensibility plunges us into a world of irony and mystery, where nothing is as it first appears.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHerman Melville was born to a merchant family in New York City in 1819. His father died suddenly in 1832, and Melville took jobs as a bank clerk, a farmhand and a teacher to make ends meet. In 1839, he embarked on the first in a series of sea voyages that would provide him with inspiration for his novels \u003ci\u003eTypee\u003c\/i\u003e (1846), \u003ci\u003eOmoo\u003c\/i\u003e (1847) and his great masterpiece, \u003ci\u003eMoby-Dick \u003c\/i\u003e(1851). Following poor sales and hostile reviews, Melville largely abandoned fiction writing after 1857, turning to poetry and a career as a customs inspector on the New York docks. He died in relative obscurity in 1891.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Pushkin Collection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50444778078482,"sku":"9781782277460","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_05675cf2-4fd1-4e7d-a9d4-0e39865bdb16.jpg?v=1729689210","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/i-would-prefer-not-to-essential-stories-9781782277460","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}