Herman Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” (1853)
Once, while I was walking in Brooklyn, carrying my Bartleby tote bag, a woman in an SUV pulled over (on Atlantic Avenue, folks) to excitedly wave at me and yell “Melville! That’s Melville!” Which is …
Edgar Allan Poe, “The Tell-Tale Heart” (1843)
Poe’s early stream-of-consciousness horror story, unreliable narrator and heart beating under the floorboards and all, is certainly one of the most adapted—and even more often referenced—short storie…
Washington Irving, “Rip Van Winkle” (1819) and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1820)
I agonized over whether I should pick “Rip Van Winkle” or “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” from Irving’s oeuvre. Both have many, many adaptations to their name and are so ubiquitous as to have drifted i…
