author
George Graham Rice
A flamboyant hustler turned memoirist, this early 20th-century writer is remembered less for literary fame than for the audacity of the life he put on the page. His best-known book offers a lively, first-person look at speculation, self-invention, and the swindle culture of his era.
1 Audiobook
My Adventures with Your Money
by George Graham Rice
About the author
Born Jacob Simon Herzig in Manhattan on June 18, 1870, he later took the name George Graham Rice and became notorious as a stock swindler and mining promoter. Contemporary accounts and later reference sources remember him as the "Jackal of Wall Street," a figure whose criminal record and talent for self-promotion made him unusually hard to forget.
Rice is best known today for My Adventures with Your Money, first published in 1913 and now preserved by Project Gutenberg. The book is an autobiography that draws on his experiences in speculation and finance, especially around the mining boom years, and it still stands out for its candid, entertaining voice.
That mix of confession, bravado, and financial folklore gives his writing its lasting curiosity value. He died on October 24, 1943, but his memoir remains a vivid window into the world of early American cons, market mania, and the kind of larger-than-life character who could turn a dubious career into a story people still read.