BARTLEBY THE SCRIVENER – PART 1 (DRAMA) Melville's classic tale of an inscrutable copyist who nearly brings down the whole system, by doing nothing at all. "Bartleby the Scrivener" was written by Herman Melville in 1853, a time of self-discovery for the author and the growing city of New York in which his story takes place. "Bartleby" was originally published anonymously in two parts in Putnam’s Monthly Magazine under the title "Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street. Chatterbox Audio Theater