Yale Literary Magazine notice of THE CONFIDENCE-MAN

This notice of Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man appeared in the April 1857 issue of The Yale Literary Magazine. Not transcribed or listed in Herman Melville: The Contemporary Reviews, ed. Brian Higgins and Hershel Parker (Cambridge University Press, 1995; paperback 2009).

The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade. By HERMAN MELVILLE. New York: Dix, Edwards & Co. For sale by T. H. Pease. 

Mr. Melville’s new book outdoes in strangeness and eccentricity even his own later stories, which have made people wonder, by the odd kind of metaphysical wildness which pervaded them. We can use no terms which will adequately characterize this his last production. It has evidently a moral, and yet this is so hidden by grotesque incidents and strange situations, that we cannot be sure that we have hit upon the right key to this metaphysico-romantic novel, in which there is no word of love, no heroine and a hero who appears and disappears in as many parts and characters, as the sole actor in a small theater. The conclusion seems to promise a continuance of the Masquerade, and we shall be glad to see it, for we are in a state of utter bewilderment as to the real faces under the masks of the present book. Yet, in spite of these drawbacks to the complete understanding of the book, we could not best [but] be charmed by its pure style and by the beauty of many of the thoughts. If its plan is poor, (which we cannot decide without further light,) its execution is sufficient to redeem it. The book may attract by its novelty, but we doubt if it adds anything to the reputation of the author of “Typee.”

This book, as well as the others published by Dix, Edwards & Co., is issued in that neat and elegant style which marks all the publications of this house. 

 The Harvard copy of Yale Literary Magazine volume 22 was Google-digitized in July 2018. 

https://books.google.com/books?id=Irq-BwX2TfgC&pg=PA246&lpg=PA246&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false 

 EBSCO Cite: 

“Literary Notices.” Yale Literary Magazine (New Haven, CT) 22, no. 6 (April 1857): 245–47. http://search.ebscohost.com.i.ezproxy.nypl.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lpn&AN=43393372&site=ehost-live.