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Herman Melville, 1857
Details
The Confidence-Man
Herman Melville, 1857
MELVILLE, Herman (1819-1891). The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade. New York: Dix, Edwards & Co., 1857.
A lovely copy of the first edition of Melville's dark, satiric final novel. The story of a mute man who boards the Mississippi steamboat Fidèle from St. Louis for New Orleans, the pessimistic outlook expressed in The Confidence-Man can perhaps be summarized by a "handbill of anonymous poetry, rather wordily entitled" that appears in Chapter 10: "Ode on the Intimations of Distrust in Man, Unwillingly Inferred from Repeated Repulses, In Disinterested Endeavors to Procure His Confidence." While Melville may have set out to write a sweeping epic of the Mississippi and ode to the grandeur of the West, biographer Robertson-Lorant notes that "by the time he wrote The Confidence-Man, however, America seemed more an 'unweeded garden' than an earthly paradise; the pastoral vision of America survived more in picture postcards and stereoscopic pictures than in actuality" (pp.362-363). Reese concludes that Melville "had already departed on his trip to Europe and the Holy Land when [The Confidence-Man] was published. Many contemporary readers thought it symptomatic of a 'bewildered mind.'" BAL 13670 (with "Miller & Holman" imprint on the copyright page); Reese Collecting Melville; Robertson-Lorant Melville: A Biography.
Octavo (190 x 120mm). (Small abrasion and closed tear to front endpaper.) Original green cloth stamped in blind, gilt-stamped spine, brown coated endpapers (spine a trifle dulled with small spot at title, cloth a little rubbed, light wear at tips); modern chemise and morocco slipcase (top panel lacking).
Herman Melville, 1857
MELVILLE, Herman (1819-1891). The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade. New York: Dix, Edwards & Co., 1857.
A lovely copy of the first edition of Melville's dark, satiric final novel. The story of a mute man who boards the Mississippi steamboat Fidèle from St. Louis for New Orleans, the pessimistic outlook expressed in The Confidence-Man can perhaps be summarized by a "handbill of anonymous poetry, rather wordily entitled" that appears in Chapter 10: "Ode on the Intimations of Distrust in Man, Unwillingly Inferred from Repeated Repulses, In Disinterested Endeavors to Procure His Confidence." While Melville may have set out to write a sweeping epic of the Mississippi and ode to the grandeur of the West, biographer Robertson-Lorant notes that "by the time he wrote The Confidence-Man, however, America seemed more an 'unweeded garden' than an earthly paradise; the pastoral vision of America survived more in picture postcards and stereoscopic pictures than in actuality" (pp.362-363). Reese concludes that Melville "had already departed on his trip to Europe and the Holy Land when [The Confidence-Man] was published. Many contemporary readers thought it symptomatic of a 'bewildered mind.'" BAL 13670 (with "Miller & Holman" imprint on the copyright page); Reese Collecting Melville; Robertson-Lorant Melville: A Biography.
Octavo (190 x 120mm). (Small abrasion and closed tear to front endpaper.) Original green cloth stamped in blind, gilt-stamped spine, brown coated endpapers (spine a trifle dulled with small spot at title, cloth a little rubbed, light wear at tips); modern chemise and morocco slipcase (top panel lacking).
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Heather Weintraub
Specialist, Books, Manuscripts, & Archives