The Confidence-man

Male, female, deft, fraudulent, constantly shifting: which of the `masquerade' of passengers on the Mississippi steamboat Fid `ele is `the confidence man'? The central motif of Melville's last and most `modern' novel can be seen as a symbol of American cultural history. No other edition of this fine novel is available in paperback. This book is intended for the general reader; students of nineteenth-century American literature.