In 1891 Fred Gilbert wrote the music-hall classic, The Man who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo, based on the exploits of Charles Wells that year. Music Hall performer Charles Coborn…
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Following the success of the hardback book, a new and revised paperback edition of The Man who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo has now been scheduled for release on 3rd…
Long before opening his famous casino in Monte Carlo, François Blanc ran a similar enterprise in Bad Homburg, Germany. Charles Lucien Bonaparte, a nephew of the Emperor Napoleon, won large…
Alongside his bank-breaking adventures at Monte Carlo, Charles Deville Wells was a renowned fraudster who persuaded unsuspecting people to hand large sums of money to him – often in connection…
Today guest blogger Anne Fletcher, author of From the Mill to Monte Carlo, writes about her great, great, great uncle Joseph Hobson Jagger – one of the first individuals to…
In a recent blog post here I discussed some of the accomplices who helped Charles Wells in his bank-breaking and other activities. One of these was named by him as…
A reader of Hitler’s Last Army has sent me details of an article which recently appeared in the Great Yarmouth Mercury. Builders renovating a house in the Norfolk village of…
In partnership with Play It By Ear Ltd., I’ve recently finished work on a one-hour documentary for BBC World Service – Las Vegas Stripped Bare. Gambling is only one of…
On a trip to London last week I made a detour via Trafalgar Square to take these photos of Drummonds Bank. Why? Because the bank was already in existence on…
Zoologist and film-maker Heinz Sielmann (1917 – 2006) was the German equivalent of Britain’s David Attenborough. His extraordinary life and accomplishments are celebrated in a documentary on the NDR TV…