Drake's Fortune: The Fabulous True Story of the World's Greatest Confidence Artist

by Richard Rayner

His scam was as simple as it was brazen. Before and during the Great Depression, Oscar Hartzell persuaded tens of thousands of Midwesterners to part with millions of dollars to start a legal fund that would see the mythical fortune of Sir Francis Drake restored to his rightful heir. In return for their contributions, donors would get shares in the riches, estimated to be worth $100 billion. The money of course went in the pocket of Hartzell, who transformed himself into a hedonistic English aristocrat even as the folks back home continued to see him as a hero.

As he recounts this amazing tale, Richard Rayner tells the larger history of cons in America. We have always had a soft spot for the crafty or larger-than-life swindler, and with Drake’s Fortune , Rayner offers a delightful portrait of a uniquely American character.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Biography, True Crime

240 pages, Paperback

First published May 21, 2002

About the author

Richard Rayner is a British author who now lives in Los Angeles. He was born on December 15, 1955 in the northern city of Bradford. Rayner attended schools in Yorkshire and Wales before studying philosophy and law at the University of Cambridge. He has worked as an editor at Time Out Magazine, in London, and later on the literary magazine Granta, then based in Cambridge.

Rayner is the author of nine books. His first, Los Angeles Without A Map, was published in 1988. Part-fiction, part-travelogue, this was turned into a movie L.A. Without a Map (for which Rayner co-wrote the screenplay with director Mika Kaurismaki) starring David Tennant, Vinessa Shaw, Julie Delpy, Vincent Gallo, and, in an uncredited part, Johnny Depp.
(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Craig Pittman]

An absolute gem. Rayner combines astute reportage, witty writing and his own shady past to both show and explain how a single glib grifter could rip off thousands of Midwesterners during the Depression.

[Anne Gafiuk]

Having finished Will Ferguson's book Spanish Fly, I wanted to learn more about The Drake Fortune and found this book. What a read! How people were captivated and gave their money to Oscar Hartzell and his associates just boggled my mind....and how they kept sending him money when he was arrested. An interesting note is that the author was a petty criminal for a short time before becoming a writer, and his father was a con man.

[Peter]

This is a very involving account of Oscar Hartzell, a wildly successful Depression-era perpetrator of the long-established "Sir Francis Drake Estate" scam. What amazed me was not so much the scam itself (which was absolutely brilliant), but instead the god-like status that Hartzell's "investors" conferred on him. "Drakism" was practically a cult, with believers who were virtually evangelistic in nature. Another interesting thing is that while Hartzell was living the high life in England, he was fully aware he was perpetrating a fraud, but at some point (probably once he was deported to America, where he was unexpectedly adored -- not lynched -- by his followers) he started to believe in his own con. He thought the scam was real, and that once the Drake estate was settled he would become the richest, most powerful man in the world. Not surprisingly, he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and eventually died in a prison mental hospital. A really interesting story. Reading it, it's not so surprising that investors in the 90's threw good money at every Internet venture that came along. It's just something inherent in our nature.

[Owen]

An amusingly written tale of the greatest con man in American history. That's a bold statement, but the manner with which he amassed money, the way he lived, and the reverent devotion his supporters paid had for him even after his conviction and incarceration is nothing short of unbelievable. One man lived a life of supreme luxury and maintained the con for decades through smiles, brash confidence, and coming to believe his own fiction.

[Etel Sverdlov]

One of my favorite books ever. Incredibly well written and intensely fascinating

[Dave Peticolas]

The true story of one of the most successful pre-Madoff confidence games ever played, and the strange man who played it.

[Marianne Evans]

Liars and Believers; what a convoluted mess.

[Meg Koch]

Interesting read about a little publicized con of the early 1900's.

[Natalie]

DNF 35%. I love the IDEA of this book. But I am done.

[Stephanie]

A great read about a true confidence scam a century ago in which people named Drake are supposedly heirs to Sir Francis Drake’s fortune lying at the bottom of the sea. With just a little investment, you could be part of it. People still believed in it, even after the perpetrators went to jail. There is no underestimating the credulity of Americans