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"The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade" is the 1857 novel by Herman Melville, his ninth and final work. It tells the interlocking stories of a group of travelers aboard a steamboat on the Mississippi River making their way towards New Orleans. Emulating the style of Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales", the novel centers on its title character, the Confidence-Man, a mysterious figure who sneaks aboard the steamboat and successively tests the confidence of the passengers. He adopts various disguises, such as a handicapped beggar, a sophisticated businessman, and a cosmopolitan gentleman, swindling his…mehr

Produktbeschreibung
"The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade" is the 1857 novel by Herman Melville, his ninth and final work. It tells the interlocking stories of a group of travelers aboard a steamboat on the Mississippi River making their way towards New Orleans. Emulating the style of Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales", the novel centers on its title character, the Confidence-Man, a mysterious figure who sneaks aboard the steamboat and successively tests the confidence of the passengers. He adopts various disguises, such as a handicapped beggar, a sophisticated businessman, and a cosmopolitan gentleman, swindling his fellow passengers in many small ways. The story consists primarily of the reactions of the travelers to this schemer and in doing so the dishonesties and pretensions of the passengers are exposed and their true natures are revealed. Melville took a satirical approach to contemporary cultural figures in much of the novel and it is believed that many of the characters were based on popular authors, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allen Poe. "The Confidence-Man" is a rich exposition on the nature of human identity set against the vivid imagery of the Mississippi riverboat era. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.
Autorenporträt
Herman Melville was an American Renaissance novelist, poet, and short story writer who lived from August 1, 1819, to September 28, 1891. His most well-known pieces are Typee (1846), a romanticized narrative of his experiences in Polynesia; Moby-Dick (1851); and Billy Budd, Sailor, a novella that was released after his death. Although Melville was no longer well-known to the general public at the time of his death, a Melville renaissance began in 1919, the year of his birth. In the end, Moby-Dick was regarded as one of the best American novels. The third child of a wealthy merchant who died in 1832, leaving the family in terrible financial shape, Melville was born in New York City. He sailed as a common sailor in 1839, first as a whaler Acushnet and subsequently as a merchant ship. However, he abandoned ship in the Marquesas Islands. His first work, Typee, and its follow-up, Omoo (1847), were travelogues inspired by his interactions with the island peoples. He was able to marry Elizabeth Shaw, the daughter of Boston lawyer Lemuel Shaw, because to their prosperity. His debut novel not drawn from personal experience, Mardi (1849), was not well received.