The Confidence-man: His MasqueradeLong 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. In Melville's time the book was such a failure he abandoned fiction writing for twenty years; only in the twentieth century did critics celebrate its technical virtuosity, wit, comprehensive social vision, and wry skepticism. This scholarly edition includes a Historical Note offering a detailed account of the novel's composition, publication, reception, and subsequent critical history. In addition the editors present the twenty-six surviving manuscript leaves and scraps with full transcriptions and analytical commentary. This scholarly edition aims to present a text as close to the author's intention as surviving evidence permits. Based on collations of both editions publishing during Melville's lifetime, it incorporates 138 emendations made by the present editors. It is an Approved Text of the Center for Editions of American Authors (Modern Language Association of America). |
Contents
Chapter | 3 |
In which a variety of characters appear | 10 |
Renewal of old acquaintance | 18 |
The man with the weed makes it an even question whether he be | 24 |
A gentleman with gold sleevebuttons | 35 |
A charitable lady | 43 |
In the cabin | 52 |
Chapter 11 | 58 |
The boon companions | 160 |
Opening with a poetical eulogy of the Press and continuing with | 167 |
A metamorphosis more surprising than any in Ovid | 179 |
In which the Cosmopolitan strikingly evinces the artlessness of his | 187 |
The mystical master introduces the practical disciple | 197 |
In which the story of China Aster is at secondhand told by | 208 |
Ending with a rupture of the hypothesis | 221 |
Very charming | 231 |
The man with the travelingcap evinces much humanity and in | 64 |
An old miser upon suitable representations is prevailed upon | 72 |
Towards the end of which the HerbDoctor proves himself | 84 |
A soldier of fortune | 93 |
Reappearance of one who may be remembered | 101 |
In which the powerful effect of natural scenery is evinced in the case | 129 |
The Cosmopolitan makes an acquaintance | 139 |
Some account of a man of questionable morality but who never | 152 |
In which the last three words of the last chapter are made the text | 238 |
HISTORICAL NOTE By Watson Branch | 253 |
64 | 310 |
224 | 355 |
TEXTUAL RECORD By the Editors | 359 |
RELATED DOCUMENTS By Harrison Hayford | 401 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
ain't American Autolycus barber Benito Cereno book's called character charity Charlie China Aster confidence Confidence-Man copy-text cosmopolitan critics dear Devil distrust Duyckinck edition emendations Emerson fair copy Fanny Kemble feel fiction fool Foster fragment Frank genetic transcription genial gentleman George William Curtis guideline to caret hand Hawthorne heart Hendricks House herb-doctor Herman Melville Hershel Parker human nature inconsistent Indian Indian-hater Indian-hating Israel Potter John Moredock kind Lemuel Shaw less letter literary look manuscript Masquerade Melville's mind misanthrope Mississippi Moby-Dick never novel Old Plain Talk Omoo Orchis original confidence passage pencil perhaps philosophical PIAZZA TALES Pierre Polonius Pray present published readers reading respected sir reviewers revisions River satire seemed sentence sort story stranger tell thing thought tion true trust truth turned White-Jacket wine words writing wrote York