Herman Melville: the Confidence-Man and Redburn (Ivory Classics)
- ISBN-10
- 1976108020
- ISBN-13
- 9781976108020
- Series
- Herman Melville
- Pages
- 542
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2017-09-15
- Author
- Herman Melville
Description
Herman Melville (August 1, 1819 - September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. His best known works include Typee (1846), a romantic account of his experiences in Polynesian life, and his whaling novel Moby-Dick (1851). His work was almost forgotten during his last thirty years. His writing draws on his experience at sea as a common sailor, exploration of literature and philosophy, and engagement in the contradictions of American society in a period of rapid change. He developed a complex, baroque style: the vocabulary is rich and original, a strong sense of rhythm infuses the elaborate sentences, the imagery is often mystical or ironic, and the abundance of allusion extends to biblical Scripture, myth, philosophy, literature, and the visual arts.The Confidence-Man (1857), was the last prose work he published during his lifetime. This novel, subtitled His Masquerade, has won general acclaim in modern times as a complex and mysterious exploration of issues of fraud and honesty, identity and masquerade. Redburn (1849), a story of life on a merchant ship, and his 1850 expose of harsh life aboard a Man-of-War, White-Jacket yielded warmer reviews but not financial security.
