What do you think?
Rate this book
U.S. Landmark Books #52
The Mississippi Bubble
Juvenile educational book-history.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1902
10 people are currently reading
150 people want to read
About the author
Thomas B. Costain
127 books189 followersCostain was born in Brantford, Ontario to John Herbert Costain and Mary Schultz. He attended high school there at the Brantford Collegiate Institute. Before graduating from high school he had written four novels, one of which was a 70,000 word romance about Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange. These early novels were rejected by publishers.
His first writing success came in 1902 when the Brantford Courier accepted a mystery story from him, and he became a reporter there (for five dollars a week). He was an editor at the Guelph Daily Mercury between 1908 and 1910. He married Ida Randolph Spragge (1888–1975) in York, Ontario on January 12, 1910. The couple had two children, Molly (Mrs. Howard Haycraft) and Dora (Mrs. Henry Darlington Steinmetz). Also in 1910, Costain joined the Maclean Publishing Group where he edited three trade journals. Beginning in 1914, he was a staff writer for and, from 1917, editor of Toronto-based Maclean's magazine. His success there brought him to the attention of The Saturday Evening Post in New York City where he was fiction editor for fourteen years.
In 1920 he became a naturalized U.S. citizen. He also worked for Doubleday Books as an editor 1939-1946. He was the head of 20th Century Fox’s bureau of literary development (story department) from 1934 to 1942.
In 1940, he wrote four short novels but was “enough of an editor not to send them out”. He next planned to write six books in a series he called “The Stepchildren of History”. He would write about six interesting but unknown historical figures. For his first, he wrote about the seventeenth-century pirate John Ward aka Jack Ward. In 1942, he realized his longtime dream when this first novel For My Great Folly was published, and it became a bestseller with over 132,000 copies sold. The New York Times reviewer stated at the end of the review "there will be no romantic-adventure lover left unsatisfied." In January 1946 he "retired" to spend the rest of his life writing, at a rate of about 3,000 words a day.
Raised as a Baptist, he was reported in the 1953 Current Biography to be an attendant of the Protestant Episcopal Church. He was described as a handsome, tall, broad-shouldered man with a pink and white complexion, clear blue eyes, and a slight Canadian accent. He was white-haired by the time he began to write novels. He loved animals and could not even kill a bug (but he also loved bridge, and he did not extend the same policy to his partners). He also loved movies and the theatre (he met his future wife when she was performing Ruth in the The Pirates of Penzance).
Costain's work is a mixture of commercial history (such as The White and The Gold, a history of New France to around 1720) and fiction that relies heavily on historic events (one review stated it was hard to tell where history leaves off and apocrypha begins). His most popular novel was The Black Rose (1945), centred in the time and actions of Bayan of the Baarin also known as Bayan of the Hundred Eyes. Costain noted in his foreword that he initially intended the book to be about Bayan and Edward I, but became caught up in the legend of Thomas a Becket's parents: an English knight married to an Eastern girl. The book was a selection of the Literary Guild with a first printing of 650,000 copies and sold over two million copies in its first year.
His research led him to believe that Richard III was a great monarch tarred by conspiracies, after his death, with the murder of the princes in the tower. Costain supported his theories with documentation, suggesting that the real murderer was Henry VII.
Costain died in 1965 at his New York City home of a heart attack at the age of 80. He is buried in the Farringdon Independent Church Cemetery in Brantford.
His first writing success came in 1902 when the Brantford Courier accepted a mystery story from him, and he became a reporter there (for five dollars a week). He was an editor at the Guelph Daily Mercury between 1908 and 1910. He married Ida Randolph Spragge (1888–1975) in York, Ontario on January 12, 1910. The couple had two children, Molly (Mrs. Howard Haycraft) and Dora (Mrs. Henry Darlington Steinmetz). Also in 1910, Costain joined the Maclean Publishing Group where he edited three trade journals. Beginning in 1914, he was a staff writer for and, from 1917, editor of Toronto-based Maclean's magazine. His success there brought him to the attention of The Saturday Evening Post in New York City where he was fiction editor for fourteen years.
In 1920 he became a naturalized U.S. citizen. He also worked for Doubleday Books as an editor 1939-1946. He was the head of 20th Century Fox’s bureau of literary development (story department) from 1934 to 1942.
In 1940, he wrote four short novels but was “enough of an editor not to send them out”. He next planned to write six books in a series he called “The Stepchildren of History”. He would write about six interesting but unknown historical figures. For his first, he wrote about the seventeenth-century pirate John Ward aka Jack Ward. In 1942, he realized his longtime dream when this first novel For My Great Folly was published, and it became a bestseller with over 132,000 copies sold. The New York Times reviewer stated at the end of the review "there will be no romantic-adventure lover left unsatisfied." In January 1946 he "retired" to spend the rest of his life writing, at a rate of about 3,000 words a day.
Raised as a Baptist, he was reported in the 1953 Current Biography to be an attendant of the Protestant Episcopal Church. He was described as a handsome, tall, broad-shouldered man with a pink and white complexion, clear blue eyes, and a slight Canadian accent. He was white-haired by the time he began to write novels. He loved animals and could not even kill a bug (but he also loved bridge, and he did not extend the same policy to his partners). He also loved movies and the theatre (he met his future wife when she was performing Ruth in the The Pirates of Penzance).
Costain's work is a mixture of commercial history (such as The White and The Gold, a history of New France to around 1720) and fiction that relies heavily on historic events (one review stated it was hard to tell where history leaves off and apocrypha begins). His most popular novel was The Black Rose (1945), centred in the time and actions of Bayan of the Baarin also known as Bayan of the Hundred Eyes. Costain noted in his foreword that he initially intended the book to be about Bayan and Edward I, but became caught up in the legend of Thomas a Becket's parents: an English knight married to an Eastern girl. The book was a selection of the Literary Guild with a first printing of 650,000 copies and sold over two million copies in its first year.
His research led him to believe that Richard III was a great monarch tarred by conspiracies, after his death, with the murder of the princes in the tower. Costain supported his theories with documentation, suggesting that the real murderer was Henry VII.
Costain died in 1965 at his New York City home of a heart attack at the age of 80. He is buried in the Farringdon Independent Church Cemetery in Brantford.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 25, 2016
It would be impossible to fully classify this book as anything but adventure; yet many elements are not adventure. With a little research, I found that many of the main events, as well as most of the primary characters, are based on real life. John Law comes from Scotland when his education in finance is finished, intending to pursue a financial career in London. He is embroiled in a duel and sentenced to death for the his opponent's death.
After he escapes Newgate, he travels abroad and explores the upper reaches of the St. Lawrence and to the Mississippi. (An interesting portrayal here is given, of all the Indians being friendly and well treated except for the "bloodthirsty wolves" of the Iriquois.) Here, chance has thrown him together with a woman who he takes as mistress; nothing much is detailed, but younger readers may wish to be aware of that.
My favorite part was the final section, of his time in Paris setting up the General Bank under Phillippe's Regency. As with all financial bubbles, it is bound to burst, and the rest of the novel is taken up with instances leading up to that 1720 burst. But his understanding of the laws of economics was truly interesting, and it is funny to hear people today saying the same thing: To save a crashing economy, lower the taxes and back the money with real, reliable value. If only the Regent could have quit printing money...
Worth a read, especially if you like adventure and finance.
After he escapes Newgate, he travels abroad and explores the upper reaches of the St. Lawrence and to the Mississippi. (An interesting portrayal here is given, of all the Indians being friendly and well treated except for the "bloodthirsty wolves" of the Iriquois.) Here, chance has thrown him together with a woman who he takes as mistress; nothing much is detailed, but younger readers may wish to be aware of that.
My favorite part was the final section, of his time in Paris setting up the General Bank under Phillippe's Regency. As with all financial bubbles, it is bound to burst, and the rest of the novel is taken up with instances leading up to that 1720 burst. But his understanding of the laws of economics was truly interesting, and it is funny to hear people today saying the same thing: To save a crashing economy, lower the taxes and back the money with real, reliable value. If only the Regent could have quit printing money...
Worth a read, especially if you like adventure and finance.
January 28, 2020
This was the number four best selling novel of 1902. I would say loosely based on a real person, John Law, who really did kill someone in a duel, really was sentenced to death and escaped jail, really did travel to the Mississippi River, and really did found a national bank of France and turn the French economy around. But all other events in the book are completely fictional. Very fictional. There's actually a good story in here being suffocated by a bad romance. I especially enjoyed Book II which took place in turn of the 18th century America. I could easily follow in my mind the route they explored from the St. Lawrence River, through Lake Michigan into Green Bay, to Portage Wisconsin to the Mississippi River and down to about what is Grafton, IL. And then the return trip to Niagara Falls and Montreal. Book I and II together would make a pretty decent movie. I am surprise it wasn't ever made into one. Book III gets bogged down but I did find it fascinating how John Law created a limited reserve banking system for France which is basically the same style of banking system we have today. You just have to wade through all the melodramatic mush to get to the good parts.
March 27, 2024
An amazing tale of how God providentially used the Frenchmen's greed to produce Louisiana...and eventually America. One of the greatest con men in history John Law started inflation in France to pay off the government's debts. Using this inflated value of money he created stock for a Mississippi Bubble that rode on the inflated Franc to spectacular worth. In order to keep of the vestige of a real colony, he wrote entirely false accounts of how easy life was in the New World, and got over 7,000 Frenchmen to kick start Louisiana. Not long after, his stock crashed, he had to flee France an exile and died in Italy a poor and forgotten man, but he had created a colony that has not yet been undone.
December 1, 2017
France...Historical Romance
April 21, 2022
A little known part of history
June 3, 2014
"The Mississippi Bubble" was a wild, giddy, devastating, international episode in eighteenth century French and American history that ought to be better known, if, as nothing else, a cautionary tale. At its simplest, a Scottish fugitive named John Law convinced the rulers of France to let him use France as a laboratory for his economic theories, and one of his schemes was selling shares for a new colony in America, eventually centered around what was to become New Orleans. The sales pitches weren't tethered to reality, especially as the scheme got more and more out of hand. Costain does a good job of following the twists and turns and tyrannical moves that were put in play to try to prop things up.
The book is from 1955. Although this edition is a Young Readers of America Selection, it's a meaty and intelligent book, well suited for grownups. It's a refreshingly honest and balanced read, as well as a good introduction to a time France went quite mad with dreams of wealth and glory. Also, since so much of American colonial history is focused on British colonies along the eastern seaboard, this is a good book to help balance the picture, dealing as it does with French (and Spanish) colonies along the Gulf.
If you have a boy in the family who likes true tales of adventure and hardship, this might be a good choice for them. Also, it might be good for homeschooling. Parental warning: Costain handles the bad stuff with restraint, but the reality includes women getting forced into being brides for colonists, and other stuff you might want to be aware of before turning your younger kids loose on the book. On the other hand, if you have a starry-eyed idealist in the family who thinks that all people are basically good, introducing them to a famous swindle, and its consequences, might be a gentle introduction to how unethical people can become, even when they set out with good intentions.
Overall, a sometimes rip-roaring good read, about a lively but shameful chapter in history.
The book is from 1955. Although this edition is a Young Readers of America Selection, it's a meaty and intelligent book, well suited for grownups. It's a refreshingly honest and balanced read, as well as a good introduction to a time France went quite mad with dreams of wealth and glory. Also, since so much of American colonial history is focused on British colonies along the eastern seaboard, this is a good book to help balance the picture, dealing as it does with French (and Spanish) colonies along the Gulf.
If you have a boy in the family who likes true tales of adventure and hardship, this might be a good choice for them. Also, it might be good for homeschooling. Parental warning: Costain handles the bad stuff with restraint, but the reality includes women getting forced into being brides for colonists, and other stuff you might want to be aware of before turning your younger kids loose on the book. On the other hand, if you have a starry-eyed idealist in the family who thinks that all people are basically good, introducing them to a famous swindle, and its consequences, might be a gentle introduction to how unethical people can become, even when they set out with good intentions.
Overall, a sometimes rip-roaring good read, about a lively but shameful chapter in history.
April 4, 2014
A great combination of the History of France and the first economic speculation system.
Set in the beginnings of 1700, this novel takes us from England to France via Canada and the US - lands that at the time were a mystery to Europe.
John Law is the main character and the story follows his life and his travels.
There are a few disappointing things about this novel. First - the author does not follow through his story the life of any single other person except John Law. We know nothing of what happened to his brother or the woman he loved during his absence. Even more frustrating is that we know almost nothing of the life of his child.
We even jump over a few years of his own life.
It was a nice reading and the description of the life and costumes of the people on the Mississippi River, makes it worth reading.
It is frustrating not knowing so much of the action that would have made this a great cloak and dagger novel.
Set in the beginnings of 1700, this novel takes us from England to France via Canada and the US - lands that at the time were a mystery to Europe.
John Law is the main character and the story follows his life and his travels.
There are a few disappointing things about this novel. First - the author does not follow through his story the life of any single other person except John Law. We know nothing of what happened to his brother or the woman he loved during his absence. Even more frustrating is that we know almost nothing of the life of his child.
We even jump over a few years of his own life.
It was a nice reading and the description of the life and costumes of the people on the Mississippi River, makes it worth reading.
It is frustrating not knowing so much of the action that would have made this a great cloak and dagger novel.
June 21, 2022
The story had very little to do the the titular bubble. If I had known it was primarily a dramatic story about a love triangle I probably would have passed on this one.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews