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Fortune's Spear Martin Vander Weyer

Fortune's Spear By Martin Vander Weyer

Fortune's Spear by Martin Vander Weyer


$20.89
Condition - Very Good
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Fortune's Spear Summary

Fortune's Spear: The Story of the Blue-Blooded Rogue Behind the Most Notorious City Scandal of the 1920s by Martin Vander Weyer

Gerard Lee Bevan was the model of an Edwardian swell - arrogant, smooth, well-connected and highly cultured. He married money and influence - his wife Sophie Kenrick was a cousin of the future prime minister Neville Chamberlain - and over the years he kept a string of showgirl mistresses. But his was a success built on fraud and deception, and eventually Bevan could sustain the fiction no longer. After a series of desperate swerves, he fled the country on 8 February 1922, abandoning his family and leaving his stockbroking and insurance empire in ruins. Thus began an extraordinary flight across Europe - disguised as a Frenchman, using a stolen passport, with his mistress at his side. His subsequent arrest in Vienna, and the Old Bailey trial that followed, would shock the entire country. 'Fortune's Spear' is a parable of the way in which the prospect of easy money draws risk-takers in every era into a spiral of greed and deceit. Bevan may have been forgotten, but he richly deserves to be remembered. Drawing on c ontemporary evidence and told with novelistic flair, Martin Vander Weyer's gripping biography brings him vividly to life.

Fortune's Spear Reviews

A wonderfully vivid biography of the man responsible for one of the great City scandals. The world that Martin Vander Weyer recreates with a novelist's flair and historian s attention to detail may be long gone, but this very human morality tale of high talent and high connection fatally compromised by a flawed character is timeless. --David Kynaston, author of 'City of London: The History' Exciting stuff ... It is a rattling good yarn and leaves you wondering whether the man had a rotten core from the beginning or whether it was addiction to money and social position which seduced him into crime. It is a cautionary tale. --Martin Jacomb, 'The Spectator' This well-researched and well-written book is more than the story of a City scandal. It is a fascinating slice of social history and a rumination on fraud and folly. --Allan Massie, 'The Scotsman' 'Fortune's Spear' is a splendidly rich account of a fraud that both symbolises its own era and prefigures our own. Unlike many financial writers, Vander Weyer writes so clearly that even a financial illiterate like myself can just about grasp what he is getting at. He also has a wonderfully broad frame of cultural reference. --Craig Brown, Book of the Week, 'Daily Mail'

About Martin Vander Weyer

Martin Vander Weyer is Business Editor and Any Other Business columnist of The Spectator and a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph, Mail on Sunday and other national newspapers. Before becoming a journalist, he was an investment banker in London, Brussels and the Far East. He is the author of Falling Eagle: The Decline of Barclays Bank (2000) and the editor and principal author of Closing Balances: Business Obituaries from the Daily Telegraph (2006).

Table of Contents

Bevan Family Tree viii Kenrick/Chamberlain Family Tree x Sonnet II xiii INTRODUCTION: The Making of a Fraudster 1 CHAPTER ONE: A Kensington Wedding Capital and Industry 15 Pillars of Society 18 The Playing Fields of Eton 27 Hollow-ware and Oddwork 33 CHAPTER TWO: On 'Change The Black Sheep 41 The Junior Partner 46 Bad Examples 52 The Senior Partner 57 CHAPTER THREE: At Home Upper Grosvenor Street 71 The Veiled Politician 75 City Magnate and Don Juan 83 At Littlecote 86 CHAPTER FOUR: The City Equitable A Wartime Opportunity 93 Lords on the Board 97 Crack Oarsmen 107 A Nine Years' Wonder 111 CHAPTER FIVE: The Post-Armistice Boom The Lucky Englishman 117 A Craze for Speculation 122 Eminently Healthy 136 Wily Dundonians 139 Partners and Directors, 1918 - 22 147 CHAPTER SIX: Boom Turns to Bust Back from Brazil 149 The Twin Bastions 153 A False Prospectus 157 Hand-to-Mouth 161 CHAPTER SEVEN: Flight Ordered Abroad 169 Proofs of Debt 174 'Parle francais couramment' 179 All is Squared 182 CHAPTER EIGHT: Capture An Inspector Calls 193 'My Poor Wife!' 201 Homeward Bound 208 And Whose the Fault? 211 CHAPTER NINE: Trial At the Guildhall 216 Who was 'Someone?' 233 Window-dressing 238 Muddled Away 242 CHAPTER TEN: Misfeasance Mansell in the Dock 249 Wilful Neglect? 255 An Historic Judgment 262 Stung by a Tart 272 CHAPTER ELEVEN: Family Matters The Prison Librarian 279 Decree Absolute 282 The Bogus Major 287 Sheila's Wedding 290 CHAPTER TWELVE: Last Years What Happened to Hatry? 293 Russet and Asp 298 The PPRS 305 A Pauper's Grave 315 Exile 321 Acknowledgments 323 Bibliography 325 Index 329

Additional information

GOR003611269
9781907642319
1907642315
Fortune's Spear: The Story of the Blue-Blooded Rogue Behind the Most Notorious City Scandal of the 1920s by Martin Vander Weyer
Used - Very Good
Hardback
Elliott & Thompson Limited
2011-10-13
352
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Customer Reviews - Fortune's Spear