The Confidence Man: His Masquerade

New York: Dix, Edwards, & Co., 1857 First edition, first printing. Publisher's purple T cloth, decoratively stamped in blind, lettered in gilt to spine, and olive coated endpapers. Very good, with some wear and toning to extremities, especially to spine, some small areas of loss to spine ends, bookseller ticket to front pastedown, repair to title page, and some light spotting to first few leaves, otherwise tight and clean in a sturdy, unsophisticated binding. From the library of Pulitzer Prize winning author Kenneth Silverman. Housed in a brown custom clamshell box. BAL 13670. Melville's ninth and final novel, The Confidence Man takes place on a steamboat travelling down the Mississippi River and tells the intertwined stories of several different characters as they attempt to gain the trust - or confidence - of the other passengers on the boat. Largely con-artists and scammers, the passengers represent what Melville believed was a major problem in the United States as capitalism grew in popularity. Interestingly, some of Melville's characters are alleged satires of prominent literary figures of the time, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Chiefly a biographer, Professor Kenneth Silverman co-directed the American Civilization program at NYU and won the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes for his work The Life and Times of Cotton Mather. Other notable works of his include biographies of Edgar Allan Poe and Samuel F. B. Morse. A magician himself, he also profiled the life of Harry Houdini.. First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good.