The king of confidence : a tale of utopian dreamers, frontier schemers, true believers, false prophets, and the murder of an American monarch

Resource Information

The work The king of confidence : a tale of utopian dreamers, frontier schemers, true believers, false prophets, and the murder of an American monarch represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in St. Catharines Public Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Audio, Nonmusical, Sounds, Music.

Label

The king of confidence : a tale of utopian dreamers, frontier schemers, true believers, false prophets, and the murder of an American monarch

Title remainder

a tale of utopian dreamers, frontier schemers, true believers, false prophets, and the murder of an American monarch

Statement of responsibility

Miles Harvey

Creator

• Harvey, Miles, 1960-

Contributor

• Hachette Audio (Firm)
• Altay, Rengin
• Blackstone Publishing

Author

• Harvey, Miles, 1960-

Narrator

• Altay, Rengin

Publisher

• Blackstone Publishing
• Hachette Audio (Firm)

Subject

• Beaver Island (Mich.) -- History
• Biographies
• Church of Jesus Christ (Strangites) -- History -- 19th century,
• Michigan -- History -- 19th century
• Mormons -- Michigan | Beaver Island -- Biography
• Pirates -- Michigan | Beaver Island -- Biography
• Strang, James Jesse, 1813-1856
• Swindlers and swindling -- Michigan | Beaver Island -- Biography
• Audiobooks
• Beaver Island (Mich.) -- Biography

Genre

• Biography
• Biographies
• Audiobooks

Language

eng

Summary

The riveting story of the most infamous American con man you've never heard of. In the summer of 1843, James Strang, a charismatic young lawyer and avowed atheist, vanished from a rural town in New York. Months later he reappeared on the Midwestern frontier and converted to a burgeoning religious movement known as Mormonism. In the wake of the murder of the sect's leader, Joseph Smith, Strang unveiled a letter purportedly from the prophet naming him successor, and persuaded hundreds of fellow converts to follow him to an island in Lake Michigan, where he declared himself a divine king. From this stronghold he controlled a fourth of the state of Michigan, establishing a pirate colony where he practiced plural marriage and perpetrated thefts, corruption, and frauds of all kinds. Eventually, having run afoul of powerful enemies, including the American president, Strang was assassinated, an event that was frontpage news across the country. The King of Confidence tells this fascinating but largely forgotten story. Centering his narrative on this charlatan's turbulent twelve years in power, Miles Harvey gets to the root of a timeless American original: the Confidence Man. Full of adventure, bad behavior, and insight into a crucial period of antebellum history, The King of Confidence brings us a compulsively readable account of one of the country's boldest con men and the boisterous era that allowed him to thrive

Accompanying matter

technical information on music

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

• 289.3092
• B

Form of composition

not applicable

Format of music

not applicable

LC call number

BX8680.S88

LC item number

H37 2020

Literary text for sound recordings

biography

PerformerNote

Read by Rengin Altay