The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade (Oxford World's Classics) - Softcover

Melville, Herman

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0192837621 ISBN 13: 9780192837622

Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks, 1999

Synopsis

Male, female, deft, fraudulent, constantly shifting: which of the `masquerade' of passengers on the Mississippi steamboat Fidèle is `the confidence man'? The central motif of Melville's last and most `modern' novel can be seen as a symbol of American cultural history.

About this title

Review:

"A challenging text....An excellent edition--very useful introduction, appendices, and explanatory notes."--Kenneth D. Pimple, Indiana University "A challenging text....An excellent edition--very useful introduction, appendices, and explanatory notes."--Kenneth D. Pimple, Indiana University "A challenging text....An excellent edition--very useful introduction, appendices, and explanatory notes."--Kenneth D. Pimple, Indiana University "A challenging text....An excellent edition--very useful introduction, appendices, and explanatory notes."--Kenneth D. Pimple, Indiana University

About the Author:

Herman Melville (1819-91) became in his late twenties a highly successful author of exotic novels based on his experiences as a sailor - writing in quick succession Typee, Omoo, Redburn and White-Jacket. However, his masterpiece Moby-Dick was met with incomprehension and the other later works which are now the basis of his reputation, such as Bartleby, the Scrivener and The Confidence-Man, were failures. Melville stopped writing fiction and the rest of his long life was spent first as a lecturer and then, for nineteen years, as a customs official in New York City. He was also the author of the immensely long poem Clarel, which was similarly dismissed. At the end of his life he wrote Billy Budd, Sailor which was published posthumously in 1924.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0192837621
• ISBN 13: 9780192837622
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416
• Editor: Tanner Tony, Dugdale John