The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, by Moby-Dick's author

(With Audiobook Link)

The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade was the last major novel by Herman Melville, the American writer and author of Moby-Dick. Published on April 1, 1857 (presumably the exact day of the novel's setting), The Confidence-Man was Melville's tenth major work in eleven years. The novel portrays a Canterbury Tales-style group of steamboat passengers whose interlocking stories are told as they travel down the Mississippi River toward New Orleans. After the novel's publication, Melville turned from professional writing and became a professional lecturer, mainly addressing his worldwide travels, and later for nineteen years a federal government employee. He continued to write poetry, but published no major prose work after The Confidence-Man. (The novella Billy Budd was found among his posthumous papers and not published until 1925.)