Story summary
Краткое содержание: «Рассказы с веранды»
- Чтение: 8 мин.
- 10 parts
- Аудио скоро
A Wall Street clerk answers every order with one calm refusal, and his lawyer boss cannot make him leave.
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«Рассказы с веранды» — кратко о книге
Краткое содержание: 8 min на чтение
- Время чтения
- Около 5 h 25 min4 h 15 min fast, 6 h 25 min slow
- Длительность
- Слов: 76 900
- Уровень в библиотеке
- Сложное чтение long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- Первая публикация
- 1856by Герман Мелвилл
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Сколько времени нужно на чтение классики · Обновлено
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«Рассказы с веранды» in short
The Piazza Tales gathers six pieces that begin with a plain situation and open into something stranger. A porch becomes a stage for a lonely girl's sorrow. An office becomes a place where one gentle refusal defeats a whole routine.
What «Рассказы с веранды» is about
What do you do with a clerk who answers every request with the same quiet sentence, I would prefer not to? A Wall Street lawyer cannot answer that question, and his failure has kept readers talking for generations. It is one of the strange situations in The Piazza Tales, six pieces by Herman Melville.
He gathered them in 1856, after the cool reception of Moby-Dick. A porch looks toward a mountain window where a lonely girl sews. A trusting captain boards a drifting ship. A salesman sells fear in a storm. You meet narrators who misread what they see, and the book begins on a porch in the shadow of Mount Greylock.
Для кого. Readers who love strange short fiction, sea stories, island tales, and narrators who grasp only part of the truth will enjoy this collection. It also suits lovers of quiet mysteries and moral puzzles.
The story in 10 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
A porch faces north and a fairy window waits
The Piazza opens with a man who moves to an old farmhouse and builds a porch on the north side. The neighbors laugh at a winter porch that faces the cold. He wants the view of Mount Greylock.
From that seat he spots a tiny gleam high on a faraway mountain. He decides that fairies must live there, though a neighbor says it is only an old barn. One September morning, weak from illness, he rides out to find fairyland. At last he climbs to a gray cottage where a pale girl sits sewing at a window.
Her name is Marianna, and she has never been down into the valley. She points to a white house far below and wonders who lives there, because it looks so happy. The narrator sees that it is his own farmhouse. He cannot help her, and back on his porch he enjoys the scenery like a play. A view that delights one person can be a prison for another.
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A calm clerk answers every request with refusal
The second tale, Bartleby, is told by an elderly lawyer with offices on Wall Street.
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Pity turns to fear as refusals grow
One Sunday morning the lawyer finds his office door blocked from inside.
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A strange ship drifts into a quiet harbor
Benito Cereno begins in 1799 off the coast of Chile.
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Suspicion and trust rise and fall through one day
As the hours pass, Delano's mind swings between two views.
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A storm brings a salesman who sells fear
The Lightning-Rod Man is the shortest piece, a comic duel at a cottage door.
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Twenty-five heaps of cinders in a silent sea
The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles, is a set of ten linked sketches about the islands now called the Galapagos.
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Stranded souls and tyrants fill the empty isles
The later sketches turn from landscape to people.
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A proud builder raises a tower with a secret
The Bell Tower is set in southern Europe, near a once-bright city.
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Every narrator looks hard and still misses something
Across all six pieces runs one habit.
Read all 10 key ideas now
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Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Bartleby A pale copyist who calmly refuses nearly every request and never explains where he comes from or what he wants.
- The lawyer The cautious Wall Street employer who tells Bartleby's story and struggles between kindness, vanity and the wish for a quiet life.
- Captain Amasa Delano An American sealing captain, generous and trusting, who boards a drifting ship to help and tries to read the strange scene aboard.
- Don Benito Cereno The young, ill and gloomy Spanish captain of the San Dominick, who guards his words and leans always on his servant.
- Babo Don Benito's attentive servant, who never leaves his master's side and seems the most faithful man on the ship.
- Marianna A sleepless girl in a mossy mountain cottage who longs to reach the happy white house she sees far below.
- Hunilla A Peruvian widow left alone on a barren island, who keeps count of her days on a notched reed.
- Bannadonna A proud foundling and master mechanic who builds the grandest bell tower in Italy and guards a secret design.
How it ends (spoiler)
Bartleby dies in prison, refusing food, and the lawyer hears a rumor that he once worked in the Dead Letter Office. In Benito Cereno, Babo has led a revolt, and the boat chase and a legal deposition show the truth. Babo is executed and Don Benito soon dies. The lightning-rod man is driven out. Bannadonna's own iron servant strikes him dead, and the tower later falls. Hunilla is carried safely home.
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Вопросы о книге «Рассказы с веранды»
What is The Piazza Tales about?
It is a collection of six pieces by Melville: The Piazza, Bartleby, Benito Cereno, The Lightning-Rod Man, The Encantadas and The Bell Tower. Each follows a narrator who watches someone strange and slowly understands more than he first expected.
What does I would prefer not to mean in Bartleby?
It is the polite sentence the copyist Bartleby uses to turn down his employer's requests. Its calm tone makes it hard to argue with, and readers see it as a quiet form of resistance whose meaning stays open.
Are the Encantadas real places?
Yes. The Encantadas are the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific, near the Equator. Melville describes their volcanic rock, tortoises and birds from his own voyage, mixing real history with tales told by sailors.
Which story in The Piazza Tales should I read first?
Bartleby is a good first choice, since it has a clear plot, a lively narrator and short scenes. The Lightning-Rod Man is quick and funny, and Benito Cereno rewards a sustained read.
What is the main message of the book?
Melville shows that people often misjudge what they see, whether a person, a place or a danger. His tales ask us to look again, to notice what a narrator leaves out, and to ask what we owe lonely strangers.
Как сослаться на это издание
Melville, Herman. The Piazza Tales. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-piazza-tales.
Melville, H. (2026). The piazza tales. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-piazza-tales (Original work published 1856)
Melville, Herman. The Piazza Tales. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-piazza-tales.
@book{melville2026piazza,
author = {Melville, Herman},
title = {The Piazza Tales},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-piazza-tales},
note = {First published 1856}
}
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