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Victor Lustig - Christopher Sandford

Victor Lustig

The Man Who Conned the World
Buch | Softcover
2024 | New edition
The History Press Ltd (Verlag)
978-1-80399-771-1 (ISBN)
CHF 34,90 inkl. MwSt
A fresh account of one of history's most notorious con artists by an acclaimed biographer
The period after the First World War was a golden age for the confidence man. ‘A new kind of entrepreneur is stirring amongst us,’ The Times wrote in 1919. ‘He is prone to the most detestable tactics, and is a stranger to charity and public spirit. One may nonetheless note his acuity in separating others from their money.’ Enter Victor Lustig (not his real name). An Austro-Hungarian with a dark streak, by the age of 16 he had learned how to hustle at billiards and lay odds at the local racecourse. By 19 he had acquired a livid facial scar in an altercation with a jealous husband.

That blemish aside, he was a man of athletic good looks, with a taste for larceny and foreign intrigue. He spoke six languages and went under nearly as many aliases in the course of a continent-hopping life that also saw him act as a double (or possibly triple) agent. Along the way, he found time to dupe an impressive variety of banks and hotels on both sides of the Atlantic; to escape from no fewer than three supposedly impregnable prisons; and to swindle Al Capone out of thousands of dollars, while living to tell the tale. Undoubtedly the greatest of his hoaxes was the sale, to a wealthy but gullible Parisian scrap-metal dealer, of the Eiffel Tower in 1925.

In a narrative that thrills like a crime caper, best-selling biographer Christopher Sandford draws on newly released documents to tell the whole story of the greatest conman of the twentieth century.

CHRISTOPHER SANDFORD is a regular contributor to newspapers and magazines on both sides of the Atlantic. He has written numerous biographies of music, film and sports stars, as well as Union Jack, a bestselling book on John F. Kennedy’s special relationship with Great Britain described by the National Review as ‘political history of a high order – the Kennedy book to beat’. Born and raised in England, Christopher currently lives in Seattle.

Erscheinungsdatum
Zusatzinfo 27 Illustrations, black and white
Verlagsort Stroud
Sprache englisch
Maße 156 x 234 mm
Themenwelt Literatur Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
Sachbuch/Ratgeber Geschichte / Politik
Geschichte Allgemeine Geschichte Neuzeit (bis 1918)
Recht / Steuern Strafrecht Kriminologie
ISBN-10 1-80399-771-0 / 1803997710
ISBN-13 978-1-80399-771-1 / 9781803997711
Zustand Neuware
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