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Benjamin Graham: The Memoirs of the Dean of Wall Street
The author describes his childhood, education, and professional career in security analysis, and recounts what Wall Street was like in the roaring twenties
351 pages, Hardcover
First published July 26, 1996
13 people are currently reading
1233 people want to read
About the author
Benjamin Graham
94 books1,889 followersBenjamin Graham was a British-born American financial analyst, investor and professor. He is widely known as the "father of value investing", and wrote two of the discipline's founding texts: Security Analysis (1934) with David L. Dodd, and The Intelligent Investor (1949). His investment philosophy stressed independent thinking, emotional detachment, and careful security analysis, emphasizing the importance of distinguishing the price of a stock from the value of its underlying business.
After graduating from Columbia University at age 20, Graham started his career on Wall Street, eventually founding Graham–Newman Corp., a successful mutual fund. He also taught investing for many years at Columbia Business School, where one of his students was Warren Buffett. Graham later taught at UCLA Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Graham laid the groundwork for value investing at mutual funds, hedge funds, diversified holding companies, and other investment vehicles. He was the driving force behind the establishment of the profession of security analysis and the Chartered Financial Analyst designation. He also advocated the creation of index funds decades before they were introduced. Throughout his career, Graham had many notable disciples who went on to earn substantial success as investors, including Irving Kahn and Warren Buffett, who described Graham as the second most influential person in his life after his own father. Among other well-known investors influenced by Graham were Charles D. Ellis, Mario Gabelli, Seth A. Klarman, Howard Marks, John Neff and John Marks Templeton.
After graduating from Columbia University at age 20, Graham started his career on Wall Street, eventually founding Graham–Newman Corp., a successful mutual fund. He also taught investing for many years at Columbia Business School, where one of his students was Warren Buffett. Graham later taught at UCLA Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Graham laid the groundwork for value investing at mutual funds, hedge funds, diversified holding companies, and other investment vehicles. He was the driving force behind the establishment of the profession of security analysis and the Chartered Financial Analyst designation. He also advocated the creation of index funds decades before they were introduced. Throughout his career, Graham had many notable disciples who went on to earn substantial success as investors, including Irving Kahn and Warren Buffett, who described Graham as the second most influential person in his life after his own father. Among other well-known investors influenced by Graham were Charles D. Ellis, Mario Gabelli, Seth A. Klarman, Howard Marks, John Neff and John Marks Templeton.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
December 15, 2016
Journey of BG from doing odd jobs to becoming father of security analysis..
August 20, 2024
What a fantastic book (I wish I'd known this book excited a few years ago).
In essence, this book is Graham’s recount of his “first half” of life. While the book is not strictly about his investment thesis, there are bits and pieces of those. But what drew my attention mostly was his earnest description of what happened before the stock crash of ‘29 and afterwards -
1) He, amongst other people, have long thought - even prior to the crash of ‘29 - that stock was overheated and would go down (he remarked the reversal of timed deposit being at 8% and stock dividend being 2% would come due). He also recounted having conversations with someone who is 90 some years old, and have been through large crashes before, warning him that Graham ought to sell everything and get out. However, Graham refused to do so because he believed that his portfolio is fundamentally sound.
2) What really pushed Graham to lose 20% in 1930, and subsequently more the following years was the over-correction of the market. Even though Graham thought at the time - and still believes so at the writing - that the leverage he used was modest, the market’s extreme crash led to numerous margin calls that he couldn’t stomach.
I’m reading this while also reading Klarman’s Margin of Safety. Klarman - obviously a true believer of Graham’s, so much that he is now an editor of Graham’s classic book - believes that during a down cycle when price discovery is not apparent due to wide bid-ask spread, it’s far better to park money in safe, liquid securities. Graham’s experience is emphasizing this to me: during a deflationary environment where money is revalued upwards and asset is revalued downwards, it would be foolish to use the margin of safety of the prior inflationary environment. The best course of action is to sit on safety and liquidity and do nothing.
But just like the intensity of the crash downwards, the upswing upward was intense as well. Graham recounted that the 3 years after 1929 - 1930, 1931, 1932 - was the hardest. In fact, 1929 was not that bad because the market was optimistic. It’s the relenting downward pressure of the market after 1929 that led the market to draw increasingly downbeat. But Graham did not give up. In 1933, he made it mostly whole.
There are even more bits of fascinating bits throughout the book (that, Graham met Winston Churchill as well as Dwight D. Eisenhower; that Graham worked with Baruch before and believes Baruch owes him more than he owes Baruch etc)... A good read overall.
In essence, this book is Graham’s recount of his “first half” of life. While the book is not strictly about his investment thesis, there are bits and pieces of those. But what drew my attention mostly was his earnest description of what happened before the stock crash of ‘29 and afterwards -
1) He, amongst other people, have long thought - even prior to the crash of ‘29 - that stock was overheated and would go down (he remarked the reversal of timed deposit being at 8% and stock dividend being 2% would come due). He also recounted having conversations with someone who is 90 some years old, and have been through large crashes before, warning him that Graham ought to sell everything and get out. However, Graham refused to do so because he believed that his portfolio is fundamentally sound.
2) What really pushed Graham to lose 20% in 1930, and subsequently more the following years was the over-correction of the market. Even though Graham thought at the time - and still believes so at the writing - that the leverage he used was modest, the market’s extreme crash led to numerous margin calls that he couldn’t stomach.
I’m reading this while also reading Klarman’s Margin of Safety. Klarman - obviously a true believer of Graham’s, so much that he is now an editor of Graham’s classic book - believes that during a down cycle when price discovery is not apparent due to wide bid-ask spread, it’s far better to park money in safe, liquid securities. Graham’s experience is emphasizing this to me: during a deflationary environment where money is revalued upwards and asset is revalued downwards, it would be foolish to use the margin of safety of the prior inflationary environment. The best course of action is to sit on safety and liquidity and do nothing.
But just like the intensity of the crash downwards, the upswing upward was intense as well. Graham recounted that the 3 years after 1929 - 1930, 1931, 1932 - was the hardest. In fact, 1929 was not that bad because the market was optimistic. It’s the relenting downward pressure of the market after 1929 that led the market to draw increasingly downbeat. But Graham did not give up. In 1933, he made it mostly whole.
There are even more bits of fascinating bits throughout the book (that, Graham met Winston Churchill as well as Dwight D. Eisenhower; that Graham worked with Baruch before and believes Baruch owes him more than he owes Baruch etc)... A good read overall.
October 5, 2024
A fascinating memoir which demonstrates the complexity of a man who had the highest ethics in business but whose married life had many affairs. This is also a fascinating time in the history of Wall Street written by one who was there, survived it and saw the impact of the devastating crash of 1929. In hindsight, he knew the market was over valued and yet didn't make quite the preparation he would have liked to protect both his and his investor's money. But his fund bounced back nicely.
His innovative approach to valuing stocks eventually became popular within the industry and he wrote many books leading to leading courses to educate the industry. He also wrote poetry and wrote several plays, one of which had a very short run on broadway.
His innovative approach to valuing stocks eventually became popular within the industry and he wrote many books leading to leading courses to educate the industry. He also wrote poetry and wrote several plays, one of which had a very short run on broadway.
April 9, 2021
A look inside the mind of the great Ben Graham, some history of the early 20th century Wall Street, a few personal anecdotes and how he looked at securities. Even he was gullible to be duped in the roaring 1920's but he recovered remarkably well and went on to write two of the seminal books on analyzing stocks & securities and had a successful money management business not unlike the hedge funds of today.
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December 9, 2019Pradip
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 10, 2021
There’s something noble about living within one’s means
June 28, 2023
鲜活有骨有肉
October 4, 2025
El libro describe de forma interesante la vida del gran Benjamín, tanto sus éxitos como sus fracasos, en definitiva la evolución que sufrió desde la infancia hasta la vejez.
December 31, 2019
I enjoyed this book, but it is not a book on investing. Here is my rough breakdown of the book:
40% Ben Graham’s childhood
30% Early work experience up until the Great Depression
10% His personal life with family and others.
10% His late-Depression successes in investing up to 1940.
10% His efforts as a playwright and as an amateur economist.
So, here’s my biggest gripe about the book: in many ways, Ben Graham’s biggest days as an investor — his greatest times of success in the 1940s & 1950s don’t get mentioned at all. I learned more of what he was like in that era from reading Alice Schroeder’s The Snowball.
Should this surprise us? No. Ben Graham wanted to live the good life in modern terms. From his time as a youth, he was hard-working, growing up amid poverty, and he never wanted to be poor as an adult.
He was a very bright guy on many topics. He was not only studied in the humanities (which he loved more), he was exceptionally good at math. The book does not describe him in these words, but he was the first hedge fund manager, and the first quantitative investor.
What made Graham a lot of money was realizing that convertible bonds and preferred stocks carried a valuable option that was often undervalued, and so he would buy the convertible security and short common against it. Strategies like this, plus activist investing, where he uncovered information advantages on undervalued stocks allowed him to become wealthy.
And that was enough for him. Unlike his more focused protege, Warren Buffett, once the game got too tough, and a pleasant retirement was attractive, he trotted into the sunset, with modest contact with his former friends in investing.
The book does not describe his time teaching at Columbia, nor any of the great investors that he influenced. Ben Graham was interested in investing, but he was more interested in the humanities, and generally having a happy time. Thus, if you read this book, realize that it is about a slice of the life of Ben Graham. The first half of his life comes in great detail. The last half of his life comes almost not at all.
But this is not an autobiography, it is a memoir. As such, Graham tells us what he wants to tell us, and leaves the rest unsaid. He tells us a little about his thoughts on marital infidelity, but does not tell us how his ending companion ended up being his deceased son’s wife.
All that said, we get what Graham wanted to reveal to us. Janet Lowe’s book on his life is more comprehensive on his later days… even Alice Schroeder gives us more on his later life by accident of covering Buffett.
In summary: this isn’t primarily a book on investing. It is a book on the thinking of one very bright man who invested and did well, and used the freedom that money brought for his own ends, both for good and for bad.
Quibbles
Already expressed.
Who would benefit from this book: If you want to know the early life of Ben Graham, this is a great book. Beyond that, you will be disappointed. If you want to, you can buy it here: Benjamin Graham: The Memoirs of the Dean of Wall Street.
Full disclosure: I borrowed it from the local library.
If you enter Amazon through my site, and you buy anything, I get a small commission. This is my main source of blog revenue. I prefer this to a “tip jar” because I want you to get something you want, rather than merely giving me a tip. Book reviews take time, particularly with the reading, which most book reviewers don’t do in full, and I typically do. (When I don’t, I mention that I scanned the book. Also, I never use the data that the PR flacks send out.)
Most people buying at Amazon do not enter via a referring website. Thus Amazon builds an extra 1-3% into the prices to all buyers to compensate for the commissions given to the minority that come through referring sites. Whether you buy at Amazon directly or enter via my site, your prices don’t change.
40% Ben Graham’s childhood
30% Early work experience up until the Great Depression
10% His personal life with family and others.
10% His late-Depression successes in investing up to 1940.
10% His efforts as a playwright and as an amateur economist.
So, here’s my biggest gripe about the book: in many ways, Ben Graham’s biggest days as an investor — his greatest times of success in the 1940s & 1950s don’t get mentioned at all. I learned more of what he was like in that era from reading Alice Schroeder’s The Snowball.
Should this surprise us? No. Ben Graham wanted to live the good life in modern terms. From his time as a youth, he was hard-working, growing up amid poverty, and he never wanted to be poor as an adult.
He was a very bright guy on many topics. He was not only studied in the humanities (which he loved more), he was exceptionally good at math. The book does not describe him in these words, but he was the first hedge fund manager, and the first quantitative investor.
What made Graham a lot of money was realizing that convertible bonds and preferred stocks carried a valuable option that was often undervalued, and so he would buy the convertible security and short common against it. Strategies like this, plus activist investing, where he uncovered information advantages on undervalued stocks allowed him to become wealthy.
And that was enough for him. Unlike his more focused protege, Warren Buffett, once the game got too tough, and a pleasant retirement was attractive, he trotted into the sunset, with modest contact with his former friends in investing.
The book does not describe his time teaching at Columbia, nor any of the great investors that he influenced. Ben Graham was interested in investing, but he was more interested in the humanities, and generally having a happy time. Thus, if you read this book, realize that it is about a slice of the life of Ben Graham. The first half of his life comes in great detail. The last half of his life comes almost not at all.
But this is not an autobiography, it is a memoir. As such, Graham tells us what he wants to tell us, and leaves the rest unsaid. He tells us a little about his thoughts on marital infidelity, but does not tell us how his ending companion ended up being his deceased son’s wife.
All that said, we get what Graham wanted to reveal to us. Janet Lowe’s book on his life is more comprehensive on his later days… even Alice Schroeder gives us more on his later life by accident of covering Buffett.
In summary: this isn’t primarily a book on investing. It is a book on the thinking of one very bright man who invested and did well, and used the freedom that money brought for his own ends, both for good and for bad.
Quibbles
Already expressed.
Who would benefit from this book: If you want to know the early life of Ben Graham, this is a great book. Beyond that, you will be disappointed. If you want to, you can buy it here: Benjamin Graham: The Memoirs of the Dean of Wall Street.
Full disclosure: I borrowed it from the local library.
If you enter Amazon through my site, and you buy anything, I get a small commission. This is my main source of blog revenue. I prefer this to a “tip jar” because I want you to get something you want, rather than merely giving me a tip. Book reviews take time, particularly with the reading, which most book reviewers don’t do in full, and I typically do. (When I don’t, I mention that I scanned the book. Also, I never use the data that the PR flacks send out.)
Most people buying at Amazon do not enter via a referring website. Thus Amazon builds an extra 1-3% into the prices to all buyers to compensate for the commissions given to the minority that come through referring sites. Whether you buy at Amazon directly or enter via my site, your prices don’t change.
August 25, 2025
For a man whose Wall Street exploits have earned him unending reverence, Graham’s memoir hints at a life replete with regrets and failures. From an investing standpoint, while chapters 1-14 depict his successes yet his journey seems to suffer a disproportionate number of fracases as initial affluence was quickly corrected by subsequent struggles stemming from the Great Depression.
Of course, a memoir is “how one remembers his own life,” and it is likely that painful experiences occupied disproportionately large quantities of his memories. Yet, the final chapters lay out the ideas of which he seemed proudest (playwriting and the Commodity Reserve Currency Plan) yet these ideas ultimately proved dissappointing. The memoir’s parting ideas fail to encapsulate his tremendous investing success. Furthermore, any mentions of Graham-Newman, teaching at Columbia, mentoring Buffett, or any vestiges of investing acumen are relegated to passing remarks once his early successes were explained and the last 20-30 years of his career are barely mentioned.
That being said, the gem of the memoir is found in the epilogue, where Graham provides a final, objective, and brutally critical, window into his perception of himself. He tears into the flaws of his character with the perspective of old age, and recounts a life with no true friends, excessive pride, and an inability to deal with women. His vast perceived (and actual) intellectual superiority rendered him largely unable to interact with intellectually inferior peers and partners; he describes being became humane, but not human.
Benjamin Graham is a man who I most greatly admire, whose written works served as a catalyst for my own career and passions, yet it seems as if his passions laid not in investing, his most prolific field, but rather in the more creative arts (literature, art, theatre), for which his talents were inferior. He was an artistic soul trapped within the mind of the more rigid arts of economics and finance, and his dreams seemed to have failed to materialize.
An insightful, yet heartbreaking memoir
Of course, a memoir is “how one remembers his own life,” and it is likely that painful experiences occupied disproportionately large quantities of his memories. Yet, the final chapters lay out the ideas of which he seemed proudest (playwriting and the Commodity Reserve Currency Plan) yet these ideas ultimately proved dissappointing. The memoir’s parting ideas fail to encapsulate his tremendous investing success. Furthermore, any mentions of Graham-Newman, teaching at Columbia, mentoring Buffett, or any vestiges of investing acumen are relegated to passing remarks once his early successes were explained and the last 20-30 years of his career are barely mentioned.
That being said, the gem of the memoir is found in the epilogue, where Graham provides a final, objective, and brutally critical, window into his perception of himself. He tears into the flaws of his character with the perspective of old age, and recounts a life with no true friends, excessive pride, and an inability to deal with women. His vast perceived (and actual) intellectual superiority rendered him largely unable to interact with intellectually inferior peers and partners; he describes being became humane, but not human.
Benjamin Graham is a man who I most greatly admire, whose written works served as a catalyst for my own career and passions, yet it seems as if his passions laid not in investing, his most prolific field, but rather in the more creative arts (literature, art, theatre), for which his talents were inferior. He was an artistic soul trapped within the mind of the more rigid arts of economics and finance, and his dreams seemed to have failed to materialize.
An insightful, yet heartbreaking memoir
May 12, 2022
Warren Buffett once said, " I wish you could've met Graham." and no it was not Katharine he was referring to but Benjamin Graham.
This memoir is the closest one gets to peeking into the life of a renaissance intellectual - not only was he adept in the labyrinth nature of stocks and bonds, he was steep in the "ornate" nature of poetry and Latin as well. Though he never was so fond of economics, he delivered a treatise on currencies and commodities later on in his life. His personal relationships are something less worthy of mention but Graham sorta bears it all out here.
Good read for all Graham fans.
P.s. I'm not too sure if you can buy this book below its historical cost of production ;p.
This memoir is the closest one gets to peeking into the life of a renaissance intellectual - not only was he adept in the labyrinth nature of stocks and bonds, he was steep in the "ornate" nature of poetry and Latin as well. Though he never was so fond of economics, he delivered a treatise on currencies and commodities later on in his life. His personal relationships are something less worthy of mention but Graham sorta bears it all out here.
Good read for all Graham fans.
P.s. I'm not too sure if you can buy this book below its historical cost of production ;p.
October 20, 2017
Benjamin Graham's autobiography clearly shows his talent for writing which is no surprise considering he often wrote for magazines and other publications. His book offers interest to those of us that find the stock market and economic ideas not boring.
September 10, 2013
Straight away 5 Star. No doubt. No hesitation. Ben Graham and his value investing rocks.
June 2, 2016
I started reading Security Analysis, thought i should read on the Man himself. Its a very understated memoir.
You dont miss much if you dont read, but not a bad one either.
You dont miss much if you dont read, but not a bad one either.
August 25, 2023
Decepcionante autobiografía de Benjamin Graham. Nada recomendable.
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