The Money Spinner: Monte Carlo and Its Fabled Casino.
Fielding, Xan.
Place Published: Boston:
Publisher: Little Brown & Co.,
Date Published: 1977.
Description: STATED FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, FIRST PRINTING. The book is VERY GOOD with warping to board foreedges and foxing to upper page block. 205 pages with index plus 8 pages black and white photos. The dust jacket is GOOD with chipping/closed tearing. NOT price-clipped Comes with BRODART jacket cover. JMVintage specializes in books, magazines, and treasures related to the Duke & Duchess of Windsor..and other curious subjects. Dust jacket notes read: "'He who breaks the bank today will assuredly return to be broken by the bank tomorrow.' Over a century ago the name Monte Carlo glided into the world's imagination with fabulous tales of luck and losses and a jaunty song about the man who broke the bank. Today it still reigns as the original capital of chance. The Money Spinners chronicles the past and present of Monaco's gleaming resort and its fabled casino. Through extensive research, Xan Fielding recreates the time before 1863 when Monte Carlo-seat of the Prince of Monaco, scion of Europe's oldest ruling family, the Grimaldis-was little more than a scrubby promontory of the world's smallest independent state, Monaco, no larger than London's Hyde Park, half the size of Central Park in New York. Fielding describes how the first attempts to create a successful gambling concession faltered, the idea almost given up, until luck finally came to Monte Carlo in the persons of the brothers Blanc. Financially shrewd, rising in their buoyant flair for publicity, the brothers Blanc-already the celebrated concessionaires of Homburg's profitable casino-ushered in the glory days of the resort, as Francois Blanc ordered construction of the luxurious Hotel de Paris (furnished, someone noted, 'with the taste of an intelligent millionaire'), bathing establishments to eclipse those at Baden-Baden, and completion of a railway line from Nice. The Money Spinners richly evokes Monte Carlo's heyday as the star of La Belle Epoque. Fielding recounts tantalizing stories of the adventuresses and magnates who sported there and tells what is truth and what is rumor about the notorious suicides (re ported with relish in the antagonistic press under the headline, 'Murdered by Monte Carlo') and homicides (some of them surprisingly grisly, considering the surroundings) that occurred during those years. Fielding's pages teem with blue-blooded aristocrats and brazen poseurs facing each other across the green baize tables and wagering fortunes on a single card or spin. Among the most spectacular are Franois Blanc, whose publicity coups included draping a black cloth 'in mourning' over selected tables just broken by some lucky player; a gambler known only as the 'Maltese,' who always sat down to play with a million francs in ready cash; munitions titan Sir Basil Zaharoff, whose financial involvement with Monte Carlo cloaked a scheme to take over the principality and place his mistress on the throne; Charles Deville Wells, the man who very nearly did break the bank, and was the very subject of the music hall song; La Belle Otero, the celebrated courtesan; Mata Hari; Aristotle Onassis, who ruled the casino of Monte Carlo but did not reign in Monaco; and Prince Rainier of Monaco-and his Princess, nee Grace Kelly-who does. The Money Spinners concludes with an extensive description of the games of chance available at Monte Carlo today. An appendix provides detailed explanations of the rules, staking, table plans, refaits, gamesmanship, and probabilities of roulette, trente-et-quarante, baccara, and craps. The author also incorporates a section on the current and most famous 'systems' devised by gamblers and the odds they try to beat."
Edition: First editionBinding: Hard Back
Condition: Very Good in Good dj
Book Id: 7427
Price: $16.25
