Speculation! The Wall Street Game-Book

New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1929. First Edition. First printing. Square octavo (19cm). Original yellow cloth, titled and decorated in red on spine and front cover; 128pp. A tight, Very Good copy, lacking the pencil and with the "seal" on pp.17-128 broken. Scattered pencil marginalia; paper-clip stain to upper margin of title page, still a quite nice example.

A rather jubilant guide to playing the stock market for the common investor, configured as a "game" in which the reader has inherited $10,000 from an uncle they have never seen, with the caveat that they will inherit the uncle's entire million-dollar estate if they can increase the $10,000 to $15,000 with a week's judicious trading. "The Wall Street Game as it is played in this book, is so simple that anyone can play it without technical knowledge of the market...as in real Wall Street, luck plays a prominent part. But you will have to use common-sense in buying and selling stocks or you will not win the million under your Uncle's will..." In what may be the most monumental case of bad timing in publishing history, the book was announced in Publisher's Weekly for October 26, 1929, just two days before the Crash. Originally issued with a black Eagle Mikado pencil, lacking from this copy.