The Witch of Wall Street: Hetty Green. Illustrated with Photographs. by Sparkes, Boyden and Samuel Taylor Moore - 1935

Garden City, NY: Doubleday Doran & Company Inc , 1935. Octavo, green illus. cloth (hardcover), uncut, 338 pp. Very Good, with slight sunning along edges, former-owner stamp, slight toning; in a Good, mylar protected dust jacket with edgewear that includes chipping. From dust jacket: From early childhood Hetty Green’s ambition was to become the richest woman in America. She realized it. She realized it at the cost of comfort, love and respect. She stinted herself, she was distinctly uncharitable, and the means she employed to gain her ends brought her more than once to the courts of law, where she did not always escape unscathed. A large portion of her life she lived in a dingy flat in Jersey City. She rode in day-coaches and couldn’t afford cabs. She knew how to make money but she simply could not spend it! When her daughter wished to marry, Hetty insisted upon her prospective son-in-law signing a waiver disclaiming all rights to any money from her. She was supposed to have left an estate of over $100,000,000, of which $9,000,000 was known to have been in cash. Of one trust fund which was distributed upon her death there were $1,478 inheritors. But not one cent did she leave to charity! A dowdy, stern, unlovable, unlikeable, even -- in the eyes of some -- disreputable old woman, but unique. She achieved her ambition. The story of how she did it makes fascinating reading.