The Confidence-Man
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The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, first published in New York on April Fool's Day 1857, is the ninth and final novel by American writer Herman Melville. The work was published on the exact day of th
First edition title page
Political cartoon of one type of con from the 19th century.
St. Lawrence steamboat, painted in 1850
Manuscript fragment from Chapter 14 of The Confidence-Man.
Herman Melville
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Herman Melville was an American writer of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are Moby-Dick, Typee, a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia, and Billy Budd, Sail
The Confidence-Man
…The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, first published in New York on April Fool's Day 1857, is the ninth and final novel by American writer Herman Melville. The work was published on the exact day of the novel's setting. Centered on the title character, The Confidence-Man portrays a group of steamboat…
1870 portrait
An 1810 portrait of Melville's father, Allan Melvill, by John Rubens Smith, now housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. In Melville's novel Pierre (1852), he fictionalized this painting as a portrait of Pierre's father.
A c. 1815 portrait of Melville's mother Maria Gansevoort Melville by Ezra Ames, now on display at the National Gallery of Art
Richard Tobias Greene, who jumped ship with Melville in the Marquesas Islands and is Toby in Typee, pictured in 1846