Melville at his best invariably wrote from a sort of dream self, so that events which he relates as actual fact have indeed a far deeper reference to his own soul, his own inner life. - D.H. Lawrence.

Here are ten stories that represent some of the best short work of American master Herman Melville, including Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street,
The Happy Failure, and The Paradise of Bachelors and The Tartarus of Maids.

Alongside THE HAPPY FAILURE, Harper Perennial will publish the short fiction of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Willa Cather, Stephen Crane, and Oscar Wilde to be packaged in a beautifully designed, boldly colorful boxset in the aim to attract contemporary fans of short fiction to these revered masters of the form. Also, in each of these selections will appear a story from one of the new collections being published in the Summer of the Short Story. A story from Alex Burrett’s forthcoming collection, MY GOAT ATE ITS OWN LEGS, will be printed at the back of this volume.