Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford

The arrival of Mrs. Wallingford set upon a much higher plane her husband's already well-established reputation as a capitalist of illimitable resources... "She is a stunner," [Doctor Feldmeyer] declared, with the faintest suggestion of a smirk, "and carries herself like a queen. She wears a fur coat that cost not less than six or seven hundred dollars, and not a woman in this town has such diamonds..."
-from Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford

Part of Chester's popular fictional series about a scheming industrialist, this satirical novel, "a cheerful account of the rise and fall of an American Business Buccaneer," relates the business crimes and misdemeanors of J. Rufus Wallingford, who inhabits a world wherein a good stomach for strong drink is worth thousands of dollars, philanthropy and profit are intimately intertwined, and preying upon widows and orphans is all in a day's work.

First published in 1908, this wickedly funny work is just as pointed today as it was a century ago.

American journalist and novelist GEORGE RANDOLPH CHESTER (1869-1924) was a regular contributor to Collier's and Everybody's Magazine. He is also the author of Five Thousand an Hour: How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress and The Early Bird: A Business Man's Love Story.