The Plunderers - Lefevre, Edwin

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Résumé :
I led the conversation round to Wall Street and incidentally said I didn't know which was easier for a man, to be a fool or to make money in the stock-market. I... had always found folly extremely easy-but successful stock speculation infinitely easier. -from The Panic of the Lion This collection of four interrelated short stories relates the doings of the Plunder Recovery Syndicate, a group of men who take it upon themselves to relieve financial villains of their extravagant wealth. Satirical and provocative, these tales are as fresh and entertaining today, in chaotic economic times, as they surely were when first published in 1912. Also available from Cosimo Classics: Lefevre's The Golden Flood. American journalist EDWIN LEFEVRE (1871-1943) also authored the short fiction collected in Wall Street Stories (1901), the novel Sampson Rock of Wall Street (1906), and the based-on-fact Reminiscences of a Stock Operator (1923).

Biographie:
Edwin Lefevre was an American journalist, writer, and diplomat most known for his publications about Wall Street industry. George Edwin Henry Lefevre was born on January 23, 1871, in Col?n, Colombia (now the Republic of Panama). He was the son of Emilia Lu?sa Mar?a Santiago de la Ossa, sister of Jeronimo and Mar?a de la Ossa de Amador, and Henry Lefevre (1841-1899). Henry was born in Jersey, the Channel Islands, and immigrated to the United States as a child. For many years, Henry served as the Pacific Steamship Company American's general agent in Panama. Their son, Edwin, had dual citizenship and was sent to the United States as a boy. He finished his study at Lehigh University, where he trained as a mining engineer. However, at the age of nineteen, he began his profession as a journalist, later becoming a stockbroker. Following his father's death, Edwin acquired considerable money and became an independent investor. While living in Hartsdale, New York, Edwin Lef?vre released a collection of his short stories titled Wall Street Stories in 1901. This was followed by other novels on money and finance until 1908, when Lef?vre, his wife Martha, and their children relocated to an estate in East Dorset, Vermont. Panama selected him as its ambassador to Spain and Italy in 1909.