The Second Edition features significantly expanded explanatory annotations, particularly of biblical allusions. "Contemporary Reviews" includes nineteen commentaries on The Confidence-Man, eight of them new to the Second Edition. Better understood today are the concerted attacks on Melville by, especially, Presbyterian, Congregationalist, and Methodist reviewers. A new section, "Biographical Overviews," embodies the transformation of knowledge about Melville s life that has occurred over the last three decades. This section provides a wide range of readings of Melville s life by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Dennis Marnon, and Hershel Parker, among others. "Sources, Backgrounds, and Criticism" is thematically organized to inform readers about movements and social developments central to Melville s America and to this novel, including utopias, cults, cure-alls, Transcendentalism, Indian hating, the Bible, and popular literature. A Selected Bibliography is also included."