Autorentext

Herman Melville (1819-1891) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and poet whose work has become central to the study of nineteenth-century American literature. Born in New York City, Melville first drew on his own experience at sea in books such as Typee, Omoo, Redburn, and White-Jacket, gaining early popularity as a writer of maritime adventure and travel. With Moby-Dick, first published in 1851, he created one of the great works of world literature: a vast, symbolic, experimental novel of obsession, metaphysics, labour, violence, nature, and the American imagination.Although Melville's reputation declined during his lifetime, later readers and critics restored him to the front rank of American writers. His shorter fiction, including "Bartleby, the Scrivener" and "Benito Cereno," shows the same depth of moral and philosophical pressure found in his longer works, but in a more compressed form. "Bartleby, the Scrivener," first published in 1853, remains one of his most famous and frequently taught works, admired for its mystery, restraint, irony, and unsettling portrait of a man who resists the demands of the world by withdrawing from them. Britannica identifies the full title as Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street and notes its original publication in 1853.

Klappentext

The Confidence-Man (1857) is a novel by American writer Herman Melville. After the failure of his novels Moby-Dick (1851) and Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (1852), Melville struggled to find a publisher who would accept his work. When it was published, The Confidence-Man was seen as a flawed, unnecessarily complicated novel, and beyond several collections of poetry, it all but ended Melville's career as a professional writer. When Melville's work was reappraised in the 1920s, however, scholars recognized his status as one of nineteenth century America's finest literary voices. A keen visionary, Melville's satirical outlook and pessimistic sense of American morality drive the fragmented narrative of The Confidence-Man, his final, most complicated, and perhaps most rewarding novel. In St. Louis, a mute man dressed in cream colored clothes boards a riverboat bound for New Orleans. On the journey down the Mississippi, a cast of characters at once bizarre and commonplace passes the time playing cards, engaging in conversation, and attempting to gain one another's trust. A crippled African American beggar faces disbelief when he speaks of his life on the streets. A young and naïve student idolizes wealthy men and hopes to make a fortune by investing in stocks. A man in a gray suit asks his fellow passengers to donate to a suspicious charity. As the boat sails on, it becomes increasingly clear that while confidence is easily purchased, honesty remains the rarest of commodities. Set and published on April Fool's Day, The Confidence-Man is a satire of American life that explores with unsparing pessimism themes of religion, identity, morality, and the role of money in everyday life. This edition of Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man is a classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers. Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book. With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.