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The article researches literary and actual nineteenth-century confidence men and their place among American characters citing reference to the novel "The Confidence-Man" by Herman Melville. Topics discussed include Twain's avoidance of confidence man as revealed in his book "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," talent of fictitious character Tom Sawyer for designing elaborate ruses in the book "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and the book "Adventures of Tom Sawyer."

This article considers deceit and criminal disguise in the context of social upheaval that recast the terms of identity from inherited status to merit. The appearance of high- profile impostors after the Revolution produced both fear and fascination, which writers and artists were quick to exploit for a ready market. It also prepared the ground for broad distrust of professional success and social advancement later in the century. Instances of deceit from across the culture mark the shifting sense of imposture in law and the popular imagination: the arrest and trial of an escaped convict who rose in the officers' corps by posing as a noble émigré; the corrosive appeal of the stage bandit Robert Macaire, in whom audiences found a symbol for swindlers in finance, law, and medicine; and the many masks, physical and figurative, that appear in Balzac's Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a list of books received, both fiction and nonfiction, including "First Steps in Americanization," by James J. Mahoney and Charles M. Herlihy, "Father Thrift and His Animal Friends," by Joseph C. Sindelar, and "Modern Americans: A Biorgraphical Reader," by C. M. Sanford and G. A. Owen.