I found a great site called Gutenberg. On it you can find many popular books in the public domain available for download.
The one I’ve been reading is from 1852. I just read Jill a part from the section on “Tulipomania”, a fascinating social phenomenon in which the following was once traded for a single tulip bulb:
Two lasts of wheat 448
Four lasts of rye 558
Four fat oxen 480
Eight fat swine 240
Twelve fat sheep 120
Two hogsheads of wine 70
Four tuns of beer 32
Two tuns of butter 192
One thousand lbs. of cheese 120
A complete bed 100
A suit of clothes 80
A silver drinking-cup 60
This totals 2500 florins, a very large sum for the seventeenth century. Other rare bulbs were sold for 6000 florins!
This section is a valuable lesson in stock prices and the speculative madness of the masses investors can learn from even today.
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