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The Confidence-man: His Masquerade (Classics)
 
 

The Confidence-man: His Masquerade (Classics) (Paperback)

by Herman Melville (Author), Stephen Matterson (Introduction) "At sunrise on a first of April, there appeared, suddenly as Manco Capac at the lake Titicaca, a man in cream-colours, at the waterside in..." (more)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 400 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Classics; Reprint edition (25 Aug 2005)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0140445471
  • ISBN-13: 978-0140445473
  • Product Dimensions: 19.7 x 12.9 x 1.9 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 314,963 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #25 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > M > Melville, Herman

Product Description

Product Description
Onboard the Fidèle, a steamboat floating down the Mississippi to New Orleans, a confidence man sets out to defraud his fellow passengers. In quick succession he assumes numerous guises - from a legless beggar and a worldly businessman to a collector for charitable causes and a ‘cosmopolitan’ gentleman, who simply swindles a barber out of the price of a shave. Making very little from his hoaxes, the pleasure of trickery seems an end in itself for this slippery conman. Is he the Devil? Is his chicanery merely intended to expose the mercenary concerns of those around him? Set on April Fool’s Day, The Confidence-Man (1857) is an engaging comedy of masquerades, digressions and shifting identity, and a devastating satire on the American dream.

About the Author
Herman Melville, though not appreciated in his own time, is now regarded as one of America's greatest novelists. Much of the material for his novels was drawn from his own experience as a seaman. He wrote his masterpiece Moby Dick in 1851 and died in 1891

Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
At sunrise on a first of April, there appeared, suddenly as Manco Capac at the lake Titicaca, a man in cream-colours, at the waterside in the city of St Louis. Read the first page
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The Confidence-man: His Masquerade (Classics)
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars An Unfairly Forgotten Book, 23 Mar 2006
By A Customer
The notes and introduction in this Penguin edition are very useful. It helps a lot to know that some of the characters are versions of real people, including famous authors such as Emerson, Poe and Thoreau.

Melville raises a lot of issues in theology and philosophy, as well as in relation to the direction he saw America taking at the time. I liked the idea of the riverboat as a microcosm of America and that the action all takes place on one day (April Fool's Day). Once midnight passes at the very end of the book, though, the day of deceptions is over and the emphasis changes.

So there's a lot to think about here.

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