| General Non-Fiction posted December 17, 2023 |
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Human face of the 1720 share bubble
Coffee and Greed
by Urbanscribe
An avaricious elderly gentleman met his persuasive nephew at the trading tables in Garraway’s Coffee House, London, a place smelling of roasted coffee, tobacco smoke and unchecked greed. “Are you ready to make a fortune, Uncle? You’ll be joining others like the great Sir Isaac Newton.”
The man nodded then counted out the money for his shares in the new joint-stock South Seas Trading Company. It was February 1720. By September the fraudulent bubble had burst. His nephew wisely vanished.
80 Word Flash Fiction contest entry
An avaricious elderly gentleman met his persuasive nephew at the trading tables in Garraway’s Coffee House, London, a place smelling of roasted coffee, tobacco smoke and unchecked greed. “Are you ready to make a fortune, Uncle? You’ll be joining others like the great Sir Isaac Newton.”
The man nodded then counted out the money for his shares in the new joint-stock South Seas Trading Company. It was February 1720. By September the fraudulent bubble had burst. His nephew wisely vanished.
Putting a human face to the South Seas Bubble of the eighteenth century.
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