num_pages: 384
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.
language: English
title: The Confidence-Man
titlecomplete: The Confidence-Man (Modern Library Classics)
genres: Classics, United States, Crime, Fiction, The United States Of America, Novels, Literature, 19th Century, American, Literary Fiction
ratings_count: 3145
publisher: Modern Library