"I would prefer not to" in Herman Melville's Bartleby is arguably one of the most influential texts in American literature. This story tells us about the ability to disagree by opening debates about justice, insubordination, law or the model of social revolt.
Herman Melville (New York, 1819 - 1891) American writer, novelist, poet, and essayist of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known novels are Taipi (1846), based on his experiences in Polynesia, and the novel Moby Dick (1851), considered his masterpiece and a classic of universal literature. Between 1853 and 1855, he published a series of stories in Putnam Magazine, among which are two of Melville's most important stories: the story Bartleby, the clerk and the novella Benito Cereno.