The book was published in 1947, and its author, Thomas B. Costain, died in 1965; the work is long out-of-print, and while not in the public domain in the United States, it is in Canada. I was surprised not to find it at Fadedpage, even though a number of Costain's other works are there. Although I can't legally publish it on Amazon, I went ahead and transcribed it anyway, simply for the enjoyment of doing so, with the intention of posting it under The Circular File.

I found this scan on Internet Archive, and used that as my source. Apart from the usual OCR errors in the scanned text, I spotted only one or two actual typographical errors in the entire book: Doubleday had darn good proofreaders back then.

Well, guess what? After completing my initial HTML and before starting the final proofread, I discovered that there actually was a project already in progress: I didn't find it because the title wasn't spelled properly! I hate the thought of scrapping my work altogether, so I decided to post the master HTML version as it currently stands. I'm not bothering to create a home-brew Kindle version however: instead, here's a link on how to send the HTML file to your Kindle.

As the Moneyman says: "I want the wife of the artisan to wear silks like the fine lady of the court and the poorest tinker to have spices in his wine."

March 26, 2022

[Update (July 30, 2022): Fadedpage has released The Moneyman, and you can find it here. Also, Costain's first novel, For My Great Folly, has been released, which is another title I had considered transcribing. Fadedpage now includes links to send files directly to your Kindle!]