Poorly received when first published in 1857, The Confidence Man is now considered Herman Melville's 'most nearly perfect work', and one that occupies a central place in the American literary tradition of masquerade and trickery. Set on April Fool's Day aboard a Mississippi steamer, this powerful and engaging novel, through the conversations of the confidence man (who may be looked on as the Devil or God), explores America and American values. Part satire, part hoax, The Confidence Man is also a dark look at the nothingness lurking beneath our beliefs and assumptions - a look at a universe in which neither God nor the Devil exists, and where Christianity is only a comforting fiction little better than an April Fool's prank.