Customer Reviews

The Market Place (The Best Sellers of 1899)

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Harold Frederic's last novel, published posthumously in 1899, it's about Joel Thorpe, an unscrupulous English businessman, who wishes to acquire all the wealth and position he can, only to end up being bored with it all after getting it. He makes his "killing" with bogus rubber stock and a great deal of chutzpah. But he is also interested in power: "There's nothing else in the world so big as power - strength. If you have that, you can get everything else. But if you have it and don't use it, then it rusts and decays on your hands." He is ruthless and a bully, and remains so right to the end.

When near the end of the book Thorpe exhibits restlessness and displeasure with the way his life is turning out, his business partner levels with him: "You've set out to live the life of a rich country squire - and it hasn't come off. It couldn't come off! You haven't the taste for it inbred in your bones. You haven't the thousand little habits and interests that they take in with their mother's milk, and that make such a life possible." One of the best characters in the book is Thorpe's sister Louisa, who has him pegged right from the start. When she accuses him of being uncaring and negligent with his money and then declares, "You sit upon your money-bags and smile. If you want the truth, I'm ashamed to have you for a brother!" - we want to cheer. The novel is brisk and sharp in its satire, and sticks with you long after finishing it. Worth tracking down and reading.

Aside from interweaving human and proto-Marxist themes that add interest, the novel provides an intriguing look into the seamy and risky world of the "naked short sale." Short sellers are often reviled by business executives as shadowy figures who victimize perfectly good companies with their machinations. The SEC has many regulations to try and curb their use. However, The Market Place tells how a business executive in an era without government regulations is able, with cunning and a top notch investment banker, to turn the tables on the short-seller. The hunters become the hunted in the City of London at the turn of the last century.