Benito Cereno & Bartleby (Annotated)
Enriched Edition. Maritime Revolt, Wall Street Refusal, and the Dark Origins of Modern American UncertaintyBy Herman Melville
Length6h 33m
About this audiobook
Bringing together "Benito Cereno" and "Bartleby, the Scrivener," this volume presents Herman Melville at his most compressed, unsettling, and philosophically acute. The first novella, a maritime tale of deception and revolt, transforms the adventure narrative into a dark inquiry into slavery, perception, and imperial blindness. The second, set in the bureaucratic world of Wall Street, turns a clerk's enigmatic refusal—"I would prefer not to"—into one of American literature's most haunting meditations on alienation, labor, and moral responsibility. Melville, best known for Moby-Dick, wrote these works after the commercial disappointment of his great whaling epic, when his fiction had grown more experimental, skeptical, and psychologically intricate. His experience at sea, his engagement with contemporary debates over slavery and capitalism, and his increasing distrust of easy moral certainties all inform these narratives. Both stories reveal an author probing the limits of authority, sympathy, and interpretation. This book is essential for readers interested in American realism's darker origins, political ambiguity, and the birth of modern literary uncertainty. It rewards close reading and remains urgently relevant.
This enriched edition has been carefully crafted to add value to your reading experience.
- A comprehensive Introduction outlines these selected works' unifying features, themes, or stylistic evolutions.
- The Author Biography highlights personal milestones and literary influences that shape the entire body of writing.
- A Historical Context section situates the works in their broader era—social currents, cultural trends, and key events that underpin their creation.
- A concise Synopsis (Selection) offers an accessible overview of the included texts, helping readers navigate plotlines and main ideas without revealing critical twists.
- A unified Analysis examines recurring motifs and stylistic hallmarks across the collection, tying the stories together while spotlighting the different work's strengths.
- Reflection questions inspire deeper contemplation of the author's overarching message, inviting readers to draw connections among different texts and relate them to modern contexts.
- Lastly, our hand‐picked Memorable Quotes distill pivotal lines and turning points, serving as touchstones for the collection's central themes.
Audiobook details
GenreLiterary Classics, General Fiction
Length6 hrs 33 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateDec 2, 2023
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Benito Cereno & Bartleby (Annotated)
7Benito Cereno (pt. 1)
2Introduction
8Benito Cereno (pt. 2)
3Author Biography
9Analysis
4Historical Context
10Reflection
5Synopsis (Selection)
11Memorable Quotes
Show all chaptersShow less
6Bartleby the Scrivener
Die größten philosophischen Romane (Kommentiert)Herman Melville, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Franz Kafka, Friedrich Nietzsche, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, André Gide, Rainer Maria Rilke, Joseph Conrad, Knut Hamsun, Klaus Mann, Fjodor Michailowitsch Dostojewski, Oscar Wilde, Thomas Wolfe176h 27m$1 · $0.00
TYPEE & OMOO (Modern Classics Series) (Annotated)Herman Melville25h 7m$2 · $0.00
Gesammelte Werke (Kommentiert)Herman Melville55h 57m$2 · $0.00
Bartleby, der Schreiber (Kommentiert)Herman Melville3h 42m$1 · $0.00
Taipi (Kommentiert)Herman Melville11h 52m$1 · $0.00
Meisterwerke der amerikanischen Literatur - Klassiker, die man kennen muss (Kommentiert)Herman Melville, Thomas Wolfe, Henry David Thoreau, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Walt Whitman, Sinclair Lewis, Mark Twain, Jack London, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Edgar Allan Poe290h 22m$2 · $0.00
Bartleby, der Schreiber: Eine Geschichte aus der Wall Street (Kommentiert)Herman Melville3h 41m$1 · $0.00
The EncantadasHerman Melville3h 35m$1 · $0.00
Vier Monate auf den Marquesas-Inseln oder ein Blick auf Polynesisches LebenHerman Melville12h 12m$1 · $0.00
Redburn. His First VoyageHerman Melville13h 25m$3 · $0.00
Moby DickHerman Melville24h 28m$1 · $0.00
Moby DickHerman Melville24h 28m$1 · $0.00
Moby DickHerman Melville24h 28m$1 · $0.00
Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the WarHerman Melville6h 3m$2 · $0.00
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Moby DickHerman Melville24h 28m$2 · $0.00
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Der HochstaplerHerman Melville12h 23m$3 · $0.00
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The Complete Works of Louisa May Alcott (Annotated)Louisa May Alcott226h 24m$2 · $0.00
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Heart of IronC. M. Alongi15h 24m$30
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RiversnowTess Thompson8h 11m$20
Supreme ClienteleAshley & JaQuavis8h 58m$20
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EmberJeffrey Wilson, Brian Andrews13h 58m$23
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The Dance with Me TrilogyShelley Shepard Gray21h 44m$35
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Sherlock Holmes: The Ultimate CollectionArthur Conan Doyle59h 49m$5 · $0.00
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