novelist's son commits mining fraud

The first edition of this pamphlet promoting investment in the fictitious mining company Solomon Columbus Rhodes.

The author, Julian Hawthorne (1846-1934), was the son of the novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, and a talented journalist and writer in his own right. He used his skill and family name to sell half a million shares of stock in non-existent mining companies in Canada before being discovered and convicted of mail fraud, spending a year in prison at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.






First edition; 12mo (17 x 12 cm); portrait frontispiece to half-title verso, centre gathering loose; original pale green wrappers, stamped in blue, stapled; [32]pp.