Ultimate Folly: The Rises and Falls of Whitaker Wright: 2018

(Hardback)

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Beginning his career as an impoverished northernpreacher, Wright fled across the Atlantic to prospect for gold and silver,braving a hard life and surviving a Native American massacre, before becomingrich by floating silver mines on the stock market. When the bubble burst, hefled angry investors and returned to England to start again. This timeAustralian gold was his route to wealth, and within five years he was one ofthe world's richest men.

At his 10,000-acre estate in Surrey heemployed seventy-seven personal staff, moved a hill that blocked his view andbuilt an underwater glass smoking room. On his vast steam yacht he entertainedthe Prince of Wales and the Kaiser.

Hisdownfall was as dramatic as his ascent. On the last trading day of thenineteenth century, his financial empire which he had propped up by cookingthe books went belly up. With the police in hot pursuit, he fled to New Yorkwith his pretty young niece, but was arrested and brought back to England. Atthe end of what the press dubbed 'the most dramatic trial of modern times' hewas sentenced to seven years in jail. Minutes later, he swallowed cyanide.

Other greatswindlers have followed in Wright's footsteps, but for daring and shamelessness nonehave surpassed him. Drawing on family papers, private memoirs and archivesaround the world, this compelling account of Wright's life reads like athriller and offers an insight into the mind of the ultimate gambler andconman..

Author Bio

Henry MacRory had a long career in Fleet Street, becoming deputy editor and subsequently acting editor of the Sunday Express. He ran the Conservative Party press office for six years and worked in Downing Street under David Cameron. He later became the party's deputy political director.