The name Herman Melville is synonymous with the pinnacle of American literary achievement, and many regard his novel Moby-Dick as the quintessential work of American fiction. In The Confidence-Man, Melville's final major novel, the author explores the motivations, travails, and personalities of a group of boat passengers en route to New Orleans, as well as the mysterious trickster figure who riles things up at the margins of the group.

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times reporter who has defined Donald J. Trump’s presidency like no other journalist: a magnificent and disturbing reckoning that chronicles his life and its impact, from his rise in New York City to his tortured postpresidency. All of Trump’s behavior as president had echoes in what came before. In this revelatory and news-making book, Haberman brings together the events of his life into a single mesmerizing work. It is the definitive account of one of the most norms-shattering and consequential eras in American political history.

Set on a Mississippi steamer on April Fool's Day and populated by a series of shape-shifting con men, The Confidence-Man is a challenging metaphysical and ethical exploration of antebellum American society.

Karen Halttunen draws a vivid picture of the social and cultural development of the upwardly mobile middle class, basing her study on a survey of the conduct manuals and fashion magazines of mid-nineteenth-century America. "An ingenious book: original, inventive, resourceful, and exciting. ... This book adds immeasurably to the current work on sentimental culture and American cultural history and brings to its task an inquisitive, fresh, and intelligent perspective. ... Essential reading for historians, literary critics, feminists, and cultural commentators who wish to study mid-nineteenth-century American culture and its relation to contemporary values."--Dianne F. Sadoff, American Quarterly "A compelling and beautifully developed study. ... Halttunen provides us with a subtle book that gently unfolds from her mastery of the subject and intelligent prose."--Paula S. Fass, Journal of Social History "Halttunen has done her homework--the research has been tremendous, the notes and bibliography are impressive, and the text is peppered with hundreds of quotes--and gives some real insight into an area of American culture and history where we might have never bothered to look."--John Hopkins, Times Literary Supplement "The kind of imaginative history that opens up new questions, that challenges conventional historical understanding, and demonstrates how provocative and exciting cultural history can be."--William R. Leach, The New England Quarterly "A stunning contribution to American cultural history."--Alan Trachtenberg

This valuable new addition to Melville studies offers a ground-breaking interpretation of Melville's last published novel, one of the most complex texts in American literature and a work that has long been noted for the divergent critical views it has elicited. Reading the novel as a generic hybrid of narrative satire and apolyptic vision, Cook situates the novel in its implicit theological, historical, and biographical contexts: he examines the novel's relation to Melville's heterodox ideas of the deity, to the increasingly commercialized cultural milieu of antebellum America, and to Melville's own life and literary career. Uncovering a wealth of new data on the novel's satirical applications, including its covert use of Melville's friends and family for character models, Cook offers a compelling reading of The Confidence-Man - one that is sure to influence our future conception of its creator.

Contents: Preface; Introduction; Chapter 1: Leatherstocking Tales of James Fenimore Cooper; Chapter 2: Nathaniel Hawthorne; Sketches of Western Adventure; The Scarlet Letter; Neutral Territory; Chapter 3: Edgar Allan Poe; South and West; Narratives of Exploration and Discovery; Chapter 4: Henry David Thoreau; The Essential West; Walden: The Pioneer; Walden: The Frontier; Chapter 5: Herman Melville; Early Western Travels; Moby-Dick; The Disputed Frontier; The Confidence-Man; Chapter 6: Indian Summer of the Literary West; Thoreau's Unwritten Epic; Hawthorne's Last Stand; Melville as Poet; Chapter 7: Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass; Index Originally published in 1965. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.