Name: The Confidence-Man
SKU: 56936852
Price: 636.00 TWD
Availability: InStock
Author: Melville, Herman
ISBN: 9781975914417

Type

Physical Book

Author

Herman Melville

Publisher

Createspace

Language

English

Pages

158

Format

Paperback

Dimensions

22.9x15.2x0.9 cm

Weight

0.22 kg.

ISBN13

9781975914417

Synopsis "The Confidence-Man"

The Confidence-Man (1857) is a novel by American writer Herman Melville. After the failure of his novels Moby-Dick (1851) and Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (1852), Melville struggled to find a publisher who would accept his work. When it was published, The Confidence-Man was seen as a flawed, unnecessarily complicated novel, and beyond several collections of poetry, it all but ended Melville's career as a professional writer. When Melville's work was reappraised in the 1920s, however, scholars recognized his status as one of nineteenth century America's finest literary voices. A keen visionary, Melville's satirical outlook and pessimistic sense of American morality drive the fragmented narrative of The Confidence-Man, his final, most complicated, and perhaps most rewarding novel. In St. Louis, a mute man dressed in cream colored clothes boards a riverboat bound for New Orleans. On the journey down the Mississippi, a cast of characters at once bizarre and commonplace passes the time playing cards, engaging in conversation, and attempting to gain one another's trust. A crippled African American beggar faces disbelief when he speaks of his life on the streets. A young and naïve student idolizes wealthy men and hopes to make a fortune by investing in stocks. A man in a gray suit asks his fellow passengers to donate to a suspicious charity. As the boat sails on, it becomes increasingly clear that while confidence is easily purchased, honesty remains the rarest of commodities. Set and published on April Fool's Day, The Confidence-Man is a satire of American life that explores with unsparing pessimism themes of religion, identity, morality, and the role of money in everyday life. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man is a classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers.

Herman Melville

(Author)

View Author's Page

Herman Melville (New York, August 1, 1819-New York, September 28, 1891)1 was an American writer, novelist, poet, and essayist from the American Renaissance period. Among his most famous novels are Typee (1846), based on his experiences in Polynesia, and the novel Moby Dick (1851),1 considered his masterpiece and a classic of world literature

Between 1853 and 1855, he published a series of stories in Putnam Magazine, most of which were collected in The Piazza Tales, including two of Melville's most important narratives: the story Bartleby, the Scrivener and the novella Benito Cereno. Also featured is the story The Encantadas, consisting of ten sketches about the Galapagos Islands linked by a single narrator. In 1857, The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, also known as The Confidence-Man, was the last prose fiction work he published. Seeking financial stability, he abandoned writing, accepting a position as a customs inspector

In his later years, in which he also had to endure the death of two of his brothers as well as the death of two of his sons, Clarence, from tuberculosis, and Malcolm from a possible suicide, as well as the death of another of his sons at thirty-five years old, Stanwix Melville, he dedicated himself to writing poetry. Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War, from 1866, is a poetic reflection on the Civil War and Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land, a fictional epic poem, published in 1876. The novel Billy Budd, which he left unfinished and was posthumously published in London in 1924, is considered one of the most significant works of American literature.

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