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The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade (Penguin Classics) by Herman Melville is a work of fiction available to read on EtoBox.

What is The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade (Penguin Classics) about?

Long considered Herman Melville's strangest novel, The Confidence-Man is a comic allegory aimed at the optimism and materialism of mid-nineteenth-century America. A mysterious shape-changing Confidence-Man approaches passengers on a Mississippi River steamboat and, winning over his not-quite-innocent victims with his charm, urges them to implicitly trust in the cosmos, in nature, and even in human nature -- with predictable results. A satiric and socially acute work that was to be a further step away from his sea novels, 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 the readers loyal to his sea stories, but if so, it backfired. Dismissed by critics as unreadable, and an undoubted financial failure, The Confidence-Man's cold reception undermined Melville's belief in his ability to make a living writing works that were both popular and profound, and he soon gave up fiction. It was not until the mid-twentieth century that critics rediscovered the book and praised its wit, stunningly modern technique, and wry view that life may be just a cosmi

Who reads The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade (Penguin Classics)?

Author

Herman Melville

Publisher

London, England ; New York, N.Y., USA: Penguin Books

Published

1990

Language

EN

ISBN

9780140445473

Category

work of fiction

Subjects

Literary Fiction, Fiction, Humanities

Rating

3.68 / 5 (84 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-14