The Crooks Who Conned Millions

This lively and engaging book tells the stories of some of the biggest fraudsters of the nineteenth century. From the largest fraud on the London Stock Exchange - in which naval hero Lord Cochrane was accused of initiating a rumour that Napoleon had been defeated so that the value of millions of pounds worth of shares which he held would be inflated - to the extraordinary story of Mary Baker, the daughter of a cobbler from Devonshire who fooled society as 'Princess Caraboo of Javasu', this is a fascinating book. Told in an anecdotal style, and including incidents of drama, conflict, pathos and tragedy, Fraudsters and Charlatans reveals the incredible ways in which men and women attempted to con the government or the general public out of millions of pounds and/or to gain fame from their activities - and how they met their comeuppance. Conducted with guile and cunning, these frauds and hoaxes affected huge numbers of people, and scandalized an entire, appalled nation. As pertinent in today's greedy society as ever, these riveting tales of true crime expose the seamier side of life in which corruption, avarice and scandal hold sway.