THE FINANCIER

This book was first published in 1912, by Harper & Brothers New York. It was revised (by Dreiser) in 1927, which is also when it was first published in Britain, by Constable & Company, which published reprints in 1931 and twice in 1936. This is a copy of that second 1936 printing.

The Financier - Story

Frank Cowperwood, a fiercely ambitious businessman, emerges as the very embodiment of greed as he relentlessly seeks satisfaction in wealth, women, and power. As Cowperwood deals and double-deals, betrays and is in turn betrayed, his rise and fall come to represent the American success story stripped down to brutal realities--a struggle for spoils without conscience or pity. Dreiser's 1912 classic, which is based on the life of streetcar tycoon Charles Yerkes, remains an unsparing social critique as well as a devastating character study of one of the most unforgettable American businessmen in twentieth-century literature.

The book is pristine, inside and out. No dust jacket.

Bright green boards, and 511 bright clean pages.

What makes it interesting is the provenance. It belonged to Leslie Hugh Callendar, who signed the front endpaper and dated it 10/1/40. He used pencil, so you can remove it.

Leslie Callendar was the son of the British physicist Hugh Longbourne Callendar (1863-1930), who was a professor of physics at Royal Holloway College, then McGill University, then the Royal College of Science, then Imperial College. He did much research on the properties of steam at high temperatures, and during WW1, used x-ray imaging to improve aircraft engines. Among Callendar's inventions was a rolling-chart thermometer that allowed long-duration collection of climatic temperature data. His successor at McGill, Ernest Rutherford (the father of nuclear physics) wrote that Callendar was regarded as a 'universal genius'.

Hugh's son,Leslie's younger brother, Guy Stewart Callendar (1898-1964), became a steam engineer and inventor. His main contribution to knowledge was developing the theory that linked rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere to global temperature. This theory is now called The Callendar Effect.

Leslie Callendar was very taken by this book. On the inside cover, also in pencil, he wrote "This book is especially interesting because it is the true story (carefully documented) of the youth of one of American's most famous and successful Financiers, Yerkes, who built the great Yerkes Observatory at Chicago.

The sequel to this book 'The Titan' which concerns the 2nd part of Yerkes' real life is even more interesting.

Yerkes also built the London Underground Railways."

This is all written in pencil, so you can remove it if you wish.

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