Between 1846 and 1857, for 11 years, the American Herman Melville (1819-1891) will write a dozen large novels – including Moby dick, his masterpiece -, more than five thousand feverish pages. But due to personal financial difficulties and the low sales of his books, the writer will have to turn to writing short stories. First sparkle in the Putnam’s Monthly Magazine in November 1853 with Bartleby the scribe. In the space of three years, there will be twenty more (including The enchanted islands, The poor man’s pudding and the rich man’s crumbs). The Finitude editions offer us a magnificent Complete news, presented in a cardboard binding in chronological order and in new translations by Christian Garcin and Thierry Gillybœuf – who have chosen to translate the now famous formula of the antihero Bartleby (“ I would prefer not to “) With” I would not like so much “. We find there Melville’s taste for elsewhere and his existential anxiety.
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