The Confidence-Man (The Writings of Herman Melville, Volume 10)

Onboard the Fidele, 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. Foreword / Nathaniel Philbrick -- Loomings -- The Carpet Bag -- The Spouter-inn -- The Counterpane -- Breakfast -- The Street -- The Chapel -- The Pulpit -- The Sermon -- A Bosom Friend -- Nightgown -- Biographical -- Wheelbarrow -- Nantucket -- Chowder -- The Ship -- The Ramadan -- His Mark -- The Prophet -- All Astir -- Going Aboard -- Merry Christmas -- The Lee Shore -- The Advocate -- Knights And Squires -- Knights And Squires -- Ahab -- Enter Ahab; To Him, Stubb -- The Pipe -- Queen Mab -- Cetology -- The Specksynder -- The Cabin Table -- The Mast-head -- The Quarter-deck -- Ahab And All -- Sunset -- Dusk -- First Night-watch -- Forecastle -- Midnight -- Moby Dick -- The Whiteness Of The Whale -- Hark! -- The Chart -- The Affidavit -- Surmises -- The Mat-maker -- The First Lowering -- The Hyena -- Ahab's Boat And Crew -- Fedallah -- The Spirit-spout -- The Pequod Meets The Albatross -- The Gam -- The Town Ho's Story -- Monstrous Pictures Of Whales -- Less Erroneous Pictures Of Whales -- Of Whales In Paint, In Teeth, Andc. -- Brit -- Squid -- The Line -- Stubb Kills A Whale -- The Dart -- The Crotch -- Stubb's Supper -- The Whale As A Dish -- The Shark Massacre -- Cutting In -- The Blanket -- The Funeral -- The Sphynx -- The Pequod Meets The Jeroboam -- Her Story -- The Monkey-rope -- Stubb And Flask Kill A Right Whale -- The Sperm Whale's Head -- The Right Whale's Head -- The Battering-ram -- The Great Heidelburgh Tun -- Cistern And Buckets -- The Prairie -- The Nut. Herman Melville ; This Volume Edited By Harrison Hayford, Hershel Parker, G. Thomas Tanselle ; Historical Note By Watson Branch ... [et Al.] Includes Bibliographical References. 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. Satiric and socially acute, The Confidence-Man represented a departure for Melville. Yet it confused and angered reviewers who preferred to pigeonhole him as an adventure writer. Some have argued the book was a joke on his readers, but if so, it backfired. Dismissed by critics as unreadable, and a financial disaster, the novel's reception undermined Melville's belief in his ability to make a living writing works both popular and profound and he soon gave up fiction. Twentieth century critics, however, came to praise the book's wit, stunning modern technique, and wry view that life may be just a cosmic con game. -- Publisher In Moby Dick Melville set out to write a "mighty book" on "a mighty theme." The editors of this critical text affirm that he succeeded. Nevertheless, their prolonged examination of the novel reveals textual flaws and anomalies that help to explain Melville's fears that his great work was in some ways a hash or a botch. A lengthy historical note also gives a fresh account of Melville's earlier literary career and his working conditions as he wrote; it also analyzes the book's contemporary reception and outlines how it finally achieved fame. Other sections review theories of the book's genesis, detail the circumstances of its publication, and present documents closely relating to the story. -- Amazon.com