num_pages: 278
description: “In The Confidence-Man,” writes John Bryant in his Introduction, “Melville found a way to render our tragic sense of self and society through the comic strategies of the confidence game. He puts the reader in the game to play its parts and to contemplate the inconsistencies of its knaves and fools.” Set on a Mississippi steamer on April Fool’s Day and populated by a series of shape-shifting con men, The Confidence-Man is a challenging metaphysical and ethical exploration of antebellum American society. Set from the first American edition of 1857, this Modern Library paperback includes an Appendix with Bryant’s innovative “fluid text” analysis of early manuscript fragments from Melville’s novel.
language: English
title: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade
titlecomplete: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade
genres: Classics, United States, Crime, Fiction, The United States Of America, Novels, Literature, 19th Century, American, Literary Fiction
ratings_count: 3145
publisher: Signet Classics