Bartleby the Scrivener, A Story of Wall Street

"Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street" is a short story from 1852 by Herman Melville.
Bartleby is hired to work as a scrivener alongside two other clerks, Nippers and Turkey, for an unnamed, elderly lawyer in New York. At first, he produces high-quality work but suddenly his work ethic takes a turn, and Bartleby reply to every task he is given becomes "I would prefer not to."
The story was in part inspired by Emerson's essay "The Transcendentalist" and has been adapted to film twice: once in 1970, starring Paul Scofield, and again in 2001, starring Crispin Glover.