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The name Herman Melville is synonymous with the pinnacle of American literary achievement, and many regard his novel Moby-Dick as the quintessential work of American fiction. In The Confidence-Man, Melville's final major novel, the author explores the motivations, travails, and personalities of a group of boat passengers en route to New Orleans, as well as the mysterious trickster figure who riles things up at the margins of the group.
General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1857 Original Publisher: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans
Reproduction of the original: The Confidence-Man by Herman Melville
As passengers aboard the steamboat Fidele prepare for their trip from St. Louis to New Orleans, they read a placard offering a reward for the capture of an imposter from the East a confidence man. During the trip, the imposter assumes many disguises as he goes about the boat cheating and duping passengers out of their money. In confrontations between the confidence man and his victims, Melville explores the hypocrisy and deceit seen to be normal in a commercial society. The Confidence-Man was Herman Melville's last major novel before his interests changed from being a professional writer to becoming a professional lecturer. With a writing style comparable to Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, in that all of the character's stories interlock as the book progresses, The Confidence Man is written in a manner of satire dealing with the themes of sincerity, identity, morality, economic materialism, and irony. The book is written based on Melville's belief that It is or seems to be a wise sort of thing, to realie that all that happens to a man in this life is only by way of joke, especially his misfortunes, if he has them. And it is also worth bearing in mind, that the joke is passed round pretty liberally and impartially, so that not very many are entitled to fancy that they in particular are getting the worst of it. In an age of commercial deception and cynicism, this is must reading. Herman Melville (1819-1891), novelist and poet, was born in New York City. Working with Romantic materials of primitivism, individualism, nature and the Gothic, Melville produced a body of fiction that analyed reality in both its social and metaphysical dimensions. He is best known for his masterpiece, Moby Dick.
At sunrise on a first of April, there appeared, suddenly as Manco Capac at the lake Titicaca, a man in cream-colors, at the water-side in the city of St. Louis. His cheek was fair, his chin downy, his hair flaxen, his hat a white fur one, with a long fleecy nap. He had neither trunk, valise, carpet-bag, nor parcel. No porter followed him. He was unaccompanied by friends. From the shrugged shoulders, titters, whispers, wonderings of the crowd, it was plain that he was, in the extremest sense of the word, a stranger. In the same moment with his advent, he stepped aboard the favorite steamer Fidele, on the point of starting for New Orleans. Stared at, but unsaluted, with the air of one neither courting nor shunning regard, but evenly pursuing the path of duty, lead it through solitudes or cities, he held on his way along the lower deck until he chanced to come to a placard nigh the captain's office, offering a reward for the capture of a mysterious impostor, supposed to have recently arrived from the East; quite an original genius in his vocation, as would appear, though wherein his originality consisted was not clearly given; but what purported to be a careful description of his person followed. As if it had been a theatre-bill, crowds were gathered about the announcement, and among them certain chevaliers, whose eyes, it was plain, were on the capitals, or, at least, earnestly seeking sight of them from behind intervening coats; but as for their fingers, they were enveloped in some myth; though, during a chance interval, one of these chevaliers somewhat showed his hand in purchasing from another chevalier, ex-officio a peddler of money-belts, one of his popular safe-guards, while another peddler, who was still another versatile chevalier, hawked, in the thick of the throng, the lives of Measan, the bandit of Ohio, Murrel, the pirate of the Mississippi, and the brothers Harpe, the Thugs of the Green River country, in Kentucky-creatures, with others of the sort, one and all exterminated at the time, and for the most part, like the hunted generations of wolves in the same regions, leaving comparatively few successors; which would seem cause for unalloyed gratulation, and is such to all except those who think that in new countries, where the wolves are killed off, the foxes increase.
The Confidence-Man is the last major work written by famous American novelist Herman Melville. It was first published in 1857, being released on April Fool's day which is also the setting of the story. It follows the day of a group of passengers on a steamboat travelling down the Mississippi River destined for New Orleans. The book is generally a light comedy that has slightly sinister themes that manifest themselves throughout the story, peaking eerily at the end! Herman Melville wrote 11 novels over his career, ending with this one, although he continued to write poetry for many years until finally passing away in 1891 at the age of 72. Melville gained little recognition for his work during his lifetime; it was only in the early 20th century that he finally began to be appreciated, most notably for his novel 'Moby Dick'. Although The Confidence-Man is one of Melville's lesser known works it is no less of a masterpiece. It is both humorous and witty with many underlying themes, such as philosophy and morality, which keep the reader interested. It is a very well written book that is undeservedly forgotten. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Argues that Herman Melville’s later work anticipates the resurgence of an American exceptionalist ethos underpinning the U.S.-led global “war on terror.”
Traces Melville's life from his childhood in New York, through his adventures abroad as a sailor, to his creation of "Moby-Dick," and forty years later, to his death, in obscurity.