Journalist Helen Brown, writing in the Financial Times, reveals the extraordinary history behind the song ‘The Man who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo’. It was written in 1891, soon after Charles Wells’ astonishing success at the Monte Carlo Casino. Later, Wells himself played it on the organ of the prison chapel on the last Sunday of his six-year sentence for fraud.
Over 130 years since it was written, the song is sometimes still heard today. Just recently it received an airing on BBC Radio 2. The Financial Times article describes Robin Quinn’s book as an ‘excellent biography’ and credits it as a source for some of the material in the article.