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Edwin Lefèvre (1871-1943) was an American journalist, writer, and diplomat most noted for his writings on Wall Street business.
Lefèvre was born George Edwin Henry Lefèvre on January 23, 1870 in Colón, Colombia (now Panama), the son of Emilia Luísa María Santiago de la Ossa and Henry Lefèvre (1841-1899). Mr. Lefèvre sent his son Edwin to the United States when he was a boy. Edwin eventually went to Lehigh University, where he received training as a mining engineer. However, at the age of nineteen, he began a career as a journalist and eventually became a stockbroker. Following his father's death, he inherited some wealth and became an independent investor.
While living in Hartsdale, New York in 1901, Edwin published a collection of short works under the title Wall Street Stories. This was followed by several novels with themes on money and finance. In 1908, Lefèvre and his wife Martha and their children moved to a country estate in East Dorset, Vermont. In 1909 he was appointed ambassador to Spain and Italy by his native country, Panama. Afterward, Lefèvre worked as a broker on Wall Street and was the financial writer for the New York Sun newspaper. He later returned to his home in Vermont where he resumed his literary work, providing short stories for magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post and writing novels.
Of the eight books written by Edwin Lefèvre, his Reminiscences of a Stock Operator is considered a classic of American business writing. The book began as a series of twelve articles published between 1922 and 1923 in The Saturday Evening Post. It was written as first-person fiction, telling the story of a professional stock trader on Wall Street. While published as fiction, it is generally accepted to be the biography of stock market whiz Jesse Livermore. The book has been reprinted almost every decade since its original publication. It has been translated into Chinese, German, French, Polish, and Italian among others. A George H. Doran Company first edition, even in fair condition, can sell today for more than a thousand dollars.
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