Try free for 30 days
-
Bartleby the Scrivener
- Narrated by: Eric Meyers
- Length: 1 hr and 51 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from Wish List failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $7.59
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also picked
-
Life on Mars
- Poems
- By: Tracy K. Smith
- Narrated by: Tracy K. Smith
- Length: 1 hr and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In these brilliant new poems, Tracy K. Smith envisions a sci-fi future sucked clean of any real dangers, contemplates the dark matter that keeps people both close and distant, and revisits the kitschy concepts like "love" and "illness" now relegated to the Museum of Obsolescence. These poems reveal the realities of life lived here, on the ground, where a daughter is imprisoned in the basement by her own father, where celebrities and pop stars walk among us, and where the poet herself loses her father, one of the engineers who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope.
-
Paris in the Present Tense
- By: Mark Helprin
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the midst of what should be an effulgent time of life, with its days bright with music, family, and rowing on the Seine, Jules is confronted headlong and all at once by a series of challenges to his principles, livelihood, and home, forcing him to grapple with his complex past and find a way forward. He risks fraud to save his terminally ill infant grandson, matches wits with a renegade insurance investigator, is drawn into an act of savage violence, and falls deeply, excitingly in love with a young cellist who is a third his age.
-
Leaves of Grass
- The Original 1855 Edition
- By: Walt Whitman
- Narrated by: Benjamin Crow
- Length: 4 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The poems of Leaves of Grass are loosely connected, with each representing Whitman's celebration of his philosophy of life and humanity. This book is notable for its discussion of delight in sensual pleasures during a time when such candid displays were considered immoral. Where much previous poetry, especially English, relied on symbolism, allegory, and meditation on the religious and spiritual, Leaves of Grass exalted the body and the material world.
-
The Metamorphosis
- By: Franz Kafka
- Narrated by: Peter Coates
- Length: 1 hr and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New translation of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. Poor Gregor Samsa! This guy wakes up one morning to discover that he's become a "monstrous vermin". The first pages of The Metamorphosis where Gregor tries to communicate through the bedroom door with his family, who think he's merely being lazy, is vintage screwball comedy. Indeed, scholars and readers alike have delighted in Kafka's gallows humor and matter-of-fact handling of the absurd and the terrifying.
-
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- By: Frederick Douglass
- Narrated by: Sarah Rife
- Length: 3 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is an 1845 memoir and treatise on abolition written by famous orator and former slave Frederick Douglass during his time in Lynn, Massachusetts. It is generally held to be the most famous of a number of narratives written by former slaves during the same period. In factual detail, the text describes the events of his life and is considered to be one of the most influential pieces of literature to fuel the abolitionist movement of the early 19th century in the United States.
-
Dubliners (Tantor Edition)
- By: James Joyce
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dubliners is a collection of short stories by James Joyce that was first published in 1914. The 15 stories were meant to be a naturalistic depiction of the Irish middle-class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century. The stories were written at a time when Irish nationalism was at its peak and a search for a national identity and purpose was raging; at a crossroads of history and culture, Ireland was jolted by various converging ideas and influences.
-
Life on Mars
- Poems
- By: Tracy K. Smith
- Narrated by: Tracy K. Smith
- Length: 1 hr and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In these brilliant new poems, Tracy K. Smith envisions a sci-fi future sucked clean of any real dangers, contemplates the dark matter that keeps people both close and distant, and revisits the kitschy concepts like "love" and "illness" now relegated to the Museum of Obsolescence. These poems reveal the realities of life lived here, on the ground, where a daughter is imprisoned in the basement by her own father, where celebrities and pop stars walk among us, and where the poet herself loses her father, one of the engineers who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope.
-
Paris in the Present Tense
- By: Mark Helprin
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the midst of what should be an effulgent time of life, with its days bright with music, family, and rowing on the Seine, Jules is confronted headlong and all at once by a series of challenges to his principles, livelihood, and home, forcing him to grapple with his complex past and find a way forward. He risks fraud to save his terminally ill infant grandson, matches wits with a renegade insurance investigator, is drawn into an act of savage violence, and falls deeply, excitingly in love with a young cellist who is a third his age.
-
Leaves of Grass
- The Original 1855 Edition
- By: Walt Whitman
- Narrated by: Benjamin Crow
- Length: 4 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The poems of Leaves of Grass are loosely connected, with each representing Whitman's celebration of his philosophy of life and humanity. This book is notable for its discussion of delight in sensual pleasures during a time when such candid displays were considered immoral. Where much previous poetry, especially English, relied on symbolism, allegory, and meditation on the religious and spiritual, Leaves of Grass exalted the body and the material world.
-
The Metamorphosis
- By: Franz Kafka
- Narrated by: Peter Coates
- Length: 1 hr and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New translation of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. Poor Gregor Samsa! This guy wakes up one morning to discover that he's become a "monstrous vermin". The first pages of The Metamorphosis where Gregor tries to communicate through the bedroom door with his family, who think he's merely being lazy, is vintage screwball comedy. Indeed, scholars and readers alike have delighted in Kafka's gallows humor and matter-of-fact handling of the absurd and the terrifying.
-
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- By: Frederick Douglass
- Narrated by: Sarah Rife
- Length: 3 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is an 1845 memoir and treatise on abolition written by famous orator and former slave Frederick Douglass during his time in Lynn, Massachusetts. It is generally held to be the most famous of a number of narratives written by former slaves during the same period. In factual detail, the text describes the events of his life and is considered to be one of the most influential pieces of literature to fuel the abolitionist movement of the early 19th century in the United States.
-
Dubliners (Tantor Edition)
- By: James Joyce
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dubliners is a collection of short stories by James Joyce that was first published in 1914. The 15 stories were meant to be a naturalistic depiction of the Irish middle-class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century. The stories were written at a time when Irish nationalism was at its peak and a search for a national identity and purpose was raging; at a crossroads of history and culture, Ireland was jolted by various converging ideas and influences.
Publisher's Summary
Herman Melville was born in New York City on 1st August 1819.
At the age of 7 Melville contracted scarlet fever which permanently diminished his eyesight. Add this to a contemporary description of being "very backwards in speech and somewhat slow in comprehension", and his opportunities for success seemed limited.
His father died when he was 12, leaving the family in very straitened times. Two years later Melville took a job in a bank and followed up with a failed stint as a surveyor. He went to sea and travelled across to Liverpool and then to the Pacific on adventures, which included a mutiny, being jailed and falling in love with a South Pacific beauty. He was also a figure of opposition to the coercion of native Hawaiians to the Christian religion. These experiences helped provide the novels ‘Typee’, ‘Omoo’, and ‘White-Jacket’.
By 1851 his ambitious masterpiece ‘Moby Dick’ was ready to be published. It never sold out its initial print run of 3,000 and Melville’s earnings on his masterpiece was a mere $556.37.
In succeeding years his reputation waned, life was increasingly difficult. His family was growing and a stable income was essential. Melville took the advice of friends to try public lecturing, as others had, to increase his revenues. He embarked on three successful lecture tours, speaking on Roman statuary and sightseeing in Rome.
In 1876 he was at last able to publish privately his 16,000-line epic poem ‘Clarel’. It was to no avail. The book had an initial printing of 350 copies, but sales failed miserably.
It was only in late 1885 that Melville was at last able to retire after his wife inherited several legacies, enough to provide them with a reasonable income.
Herman Melville, novelist, poet, short story writer and essayist, died at his home on 28th September 1891 from cardiovascular disease.
Perhaps his best known short story is ‘Bartleby, the Scrivener’, an enduring story of a Wall Street lawyer and his very particular assistant.