The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade; An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Reviews, Criticism and an Annotated Bibliography (A Norton)

Melville, Herman

ISBN 10: 0393099687 / ISBN 13: 9780393099683

Published by W W Norton & Co Inc, 1971

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade; An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Reviews, Criticism and an Annotated Bibliography (A Norton)
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Publication Date: 1971
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393099687
• ISBN 13: 9780393099683
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition: 5th or later Edition
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

The text of the nineteenth-century allegorical novel is accompanied by critical evaluations, notes on its background, and numerous reviews

Book Description

Long considered the author's strangest novel, The Confidence-Man is a comic allegory aimed at the optimism and materialism of mid-eighteenth-century America. A mysterious shape-changing Confidence-Man approaches passengers on a Mississippi steamboat and, winning over the (not quite innocent) victims with his charm, urges them to implicitly trust in the cosmos, in nature, and even in human nature-with predictable results.

The Confidence-Man represented a departure for Melville, a satirical and socially acute work that was to be a further step away from his sea novels. Yet it confused and angered reviewers who preferred to pigeonhole him as an adventure writer. Some have argued the book was a joke on the readers loyal to his sea stories, but if so, it backfired. Dismissed by critics as unreadable, and an undoubted financial failure, The Confidence-Man's cold reception undermined Melville's belief in his ability to make a living writing works that were both popular and profound, and he soon gave up fiction. It was not until the mid-twentieth century that critics rediscovered the book and praised its wit, stunningly modern technique, and wry view that life may be just a cosmic con game.