The Confidence-Man

By: Melville, Herman

Long considered Melville's strangest novel, The Confidence-Man is a comic allegory aimed at the optimism and materialism of mid-nineteenth century America. A shape-shifting Confidence-Man approaches passengers on a Mississippi River steamboat and, winning over his not-quite-innocent victims with his charms, urges each to trust in the cosmos, in nature, and even in human nature-with predictable results. In Melville's time the book was such a failure he abandoned fiction writing for twenty years; only in the twentieth century did critics celebrate its technical virtuosity, wit, comprehensive social vision, and wry scepticism.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1691064564
• ISBN13: 9781691064564
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 608 Pages
• Weight: 1.94 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"