Herman Melville’s Last Work of Fiction
Confidence-Man. His Masquerade.
New York: Dix, Edwards & Co., 1857.
Full Description:
MELVILLE, Herman. The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade. New York: Dix, Edwards & Co., 1857.
First American edition (issued simultaneously with the London edition, according to BAL) of the author’s last work of fiction. The first issue with the "Miller & Holman" imprint on the copyright page. Twelvemo (7 1/2 x 4 7/8 inches; 191 x 125 mm). [6, blank], vi, 394, [2, blank] pp. With initial blank pasted under front endpaper as per BAL.
Original brown fine-grain cloth. Boards decoratively ruled and stamped in blind. Spine decoratively ruled in blind and lettered in gilt. Green coated endpapers. Some minor chipping to spine. A small amount of repair to head of spine. Previous owner's bookplate on front pastedown. A small bookseller stamp to front free endpaper and front flyleaf. First signature a little sprung. Small glue residue to pages 38/39, affecting a few letters. A small closed tear to lower blank margin of pages 21/22 and 23/24, not affecting text. Overall a very good copy.
The Confidence-Man, Melville’s unfinished satirical novel, was his last work of fiction, “written just before the long silence of his later life, and expresses a pessimistic view best described by the title of a handbill which figures in the story: ‘Ode on the Intimations of Distrust in Man, Unwillingly Inferred from Repeated Repulses, in Disinterested Endeavors to Procure His Confidence’” (The Oxford Companion to American Literature).
BAL 13670.
HBS 69525.
$10,000.
Price: $10,000.00
Item #69525