Lemuel Shaw-"repeatedly came to his son-in-law's financial aid".Agatha Robertson of Falmouth, "who waited for her husband's return for seventeen years, unaware that he had deserted her and had, in the meantime, illegally married two other women"-series of letters between Melville and Hawthorne about Agatha in 1852-a version of the Agatha story written, probably in 1852-53-suggestion of a rotting wooden postbox, like the Dead Letter Office.Eli James Murdock Fly-apprentice lawyer and copyist in Peter Gansevoort's law office in Albany, confirmed invalid-while Melville in South Seas, Fly writing "incessantly" from morning to evening as copyist-Melville had sought employment as scrivener in 1840 before going to sea-Fly died about time Melville wrote "Bartleby.".George Adler-acquaintance on a voyage in 1849 to England, New York university professor, who suffered from agoraphobia.Melville himself-Melville responding to "public's rejection of Pierre, portraying his refusal to 'copy' the popular writers of his day"-"the lawyer's chambers are the prison of Melville's life.the 'dead letters' are Melville's manuscripts".Melville received $55 for first eleven pages, $30 for last six. Originally published in two installments on November 1 and December 1, 1853, in Putnam's. A Reader's Guide to the Short Stories of Herman Melville. Cover detail and frontispiece from Four Short Novels.