Confidence-Man
In Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, a group of steamboat passengers paddle to New Orleans on April Fool’s Day. As the Mississippi carries them down river, everyone is selling something: quack remedies; stock in a mining company about to fail; a fraudulent charity for widows and orphans. Set on the eve of the Civil War, as the frontier rapidly expands and Native Americans are d...
In Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, a group of steamboat passengers paddle to New Orleans on April Fool’s Day. As the Mississippi carries them down river, everyone is selling something: quack remedies; stock in a mining company about to fail; a fraudulent charity for widows and orphans. Set on the eve of the Civil War, as the frontier rapidly expands and Native Americans are d...
