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The confidence-man : his masquerade / Herman Melville

By:

Melville, Herman, 1819-1891

Material type: Text

TextPublication details: New York : The Modern Library , c2003Description: 331 p. ; 21 cmISBN:

9780375758027

Subject(s):

DDC classification:

FIC MEL

LOC classification:

PS3566.A686 H86 2006

Summary: Onboard the Fidèle, a steamboat floating down the Mississippi to New Orleans, a confidence man sets out to defraud his fellow passengers. In quick succession he assumes numerous guises - from a legless beggar and a worldly businessman to a collector for charitable causes and a 'cosmopolitan' gentleman, who simply swindles a barber out of the price of a shave. Making very little from his hoaxes, the pleasure of trickery seems an end in itself for this slippery conman. Is he the Devil? Is his chicanery merely intended to expose the mercenary concerns of those around him? Set on April Fool's Day, The Confidence-Man (1857) is an engaging comedy of masquerades, digressions and shifting identity, and a devastating satire on the American dream.

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Holdings
Item type	Current library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode
Fiction / Ficción	Biblioteca Pública de San Miguel de Allende, A.C. Sala Ingles	General	FIC MEL (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Available		056892

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Previous	FIC MEL The zero game	FIC MEL The lightning rod : a Zig & Nola novel	FIC MEL White-jacket, or, The world in a man-of-war	FIC MEL The confidence-man : his masquerade	FIC MEL Bartleby the scrivener, Benito Cereno, Billy Budd	FIC MEL Moby Dick; or, the whale	FIC MEL The escape artist	Next

Onboard the Fidèle, a steamboat floating down the Mississippi to New Orleans, a confidence man sets out to defraud his fellow passengers. In quick succession he assumes numerous guises - from a legless beggar and a worldly businessman to a collector for charitable causes and a 'cosmopolitan' gentleman, who simply swindles a barber out of the price of a shave. Making very little from his hoaxes, the pleasure of trickery seems an end in itself for this slippery conman. Is he the Devil? Is his chicanery merely intended to expose the mercenary concerns of those around him? Set on April Fool's Day, The Confidence-Man (1857) is an engaging comedy of masquerades, digressions and shifting identity, and a devastating satire on the American dream.

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