Story summary
Trama e riassunto di Venerdì 13
- 8 min di lettura
- 8 parts
- Audio a breve
A broker on Wall Street sells until banks fail, and only his oldest friend can try to stop him.
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Venerdì 13 in breve
Riassunto: 8 min di lettura
- Tempo di lettura
- Circa 3 h 10 min2 h 30 min fast, 3 h 45 min slow
- Durata
- 44.700 parole
- Livello nella biblioteca
- Medio longer sentences, everyday words
- Prima pubblicazione
- 1907by Thomas William Lawson
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Quanto tempo ci vuole per leggere i classici · Aggiornato
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Venerdì 13 in short
Friday, the Thirteenth follows two college friends in the world of high finance. Jim Randolph, careful and rich, stays in the banking house his father built. Bob Brownley, gifted and proud, makes his living on the Stock Exchange floor.
What Venerdì 13 is about
On Friday the thirteenth, Jim Randolph sits in his office as the ticker tape signals a market panic. His floor man, Fred Brownley, calls from the Stock Exchange. Fred's own brother Bob is selling stocks in huge blocks, and the market is burning.
Friday, the Thirteenth was written by Thomas William Lawson, a financier who knew the market from the inside. Jim, head of an old banking house, looks back over five years of his friend's life.
A chi è rivolto. You will enjoy this if you like fast stories of money and power, friendship tested by fate, and a close look at how a stock exchange floor works.
The story in 8 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
Two old friends carry two kinds of fortune
Jim Randolph tells the story, and he starts with what he is. He leads Randolph and Randolph, a banking house more than sixty years old. Its money was never lent above the legal rate of six percent, and it has never taken part in frenzied finance.
Bob Brownley is the friend who matters most to him. They spent four years together at St. Paul's school and four more at Harvard. Jim's family had money and Northern caution. Bob came from Richmond, Virginia, with a proud name and no money at all. His father left a widow, three daughters and a small son to depend on Bob.
Jim's father offers them both a place as partners. Bob wants a seat on the Stock Exchange floor so that he can owe nothing to friendship. Within four years he has repaid the price and is the favorite of the whole floor.
Yet Bob warns Jim that something in him is not safe. His grandfather once staked land and slaves on a single card game and lost. Bob says those same gambling microbes are in his blood. Jim shrugs it off, and that choice haunts him later.
The gentlest person in a gambling house may carry the fiercest storm.
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A ruined judge's daughter arrives with a plan
On a hot Saturday in July, as Jim and Bob are about to leave for Jim's yacht, a young woman asks to see Bob.
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Sugar soars, then Barry Conant sells it down
Three months pass.
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Love is spoken, and a father's letter arrives
Bob goes to Virginia for a week and returns hardened.
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On Friday the thirteenth, one man breaks the market
That Friday drifts over Manhattan in cold drizzle.
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A mind lost, a billion won, a friend broken
Doctors in America and Europe study Beulah and offer no hope.
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The System plays with loaded dice
The first big theme is that the market is rigged by people who own the rules.
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Revenge and conscience pull one man apart
The second theme is the price of revenge.
Read all 8 key ideas now
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Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Jim Randolph The cautious head of the old banking house of Randolph and Randolph, who tells the story and would do anything for his friend Bob.
- Bob Brownley A proud Virginian and the best broker on the floor, who sets out to win back a ruined family's fortune and ends up at war with Wall Street.
- Beulah Sands A gifted young Virginian who comes North with sixty thousand dollars to save her father, and who holds fast to a code of fair play.
- Judge Lee Sands Beulah's father, a respected Virginia judge and trustee, who is ruined when his railroad is taken from him and trust funds are lost.
- Barry Conant The small, calm head broker for Camemeyer and Standard Oil, who can break a price with a single word, Sold.
- Tom Reinhart A powerful financier who wrecks the Seaboard Air Line and later builds the vast Anti-People's Trust.
- Fred Brownley Bob's younger brother, a loyal floor man at the firm, who calls Jim for help when Bob goes on the warpath.
- Katherine Randolph Jim's warm and steady wife, to whom Bob confesses his love for Beulah.
How it ends (spoiler)
Bob's speech ends with an order. He gives Barry Conant a signed checkbook and tells the floor to buy against him. As trading resumes, his brother tells him that Beulah has awakened and wants him. Bob drives wildly through the crowded streets to his Fifth Avenue house. He finds her dead at her old desk, an afternoon paper in her hands. He kneels beside her and dies, his clasped hands against her hair. The paper reports the death of Reinhart.
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Domande su Venerdì 13
What is Friday, the Thirteenth about?
It follows Bob Brownley, a Virginia-born broker, and his friend Jim Randolph. Bob tries to save a ruined family and then wages war on Wall Street, causing a huge panic on Friday the thirteenth.
Who is Beulah Sands in Friday, the Thirteenth?
Beulah is the young daughter of Judge Lee Sands of Virginia. She comes to New York with sixty thousand dollars and a plan to win back her father's lost fortune, and she wins Bob's heart.
What does the System mean in the book?
The System is the name Bob gives to the powerful group of financiers and banks, including Standard Oil, who control the market and the news, and who profit as the public loses.
Is Friday, the Thirteenth a true story?
It is a novel. Thomas Lawson, a financier, completed it in 1906 and drew on real Wall Street practices, while the main people and the great panic are invented for the story.
Is Friday, the Thirteenth easy to follow if I know nothing about the stock market?
Yes, the book explains terms such as short selling, wash sales and the gavel as it goes. Short scenes, clear dialogue and a narrator who speaks plainly make the trading floor easy to picture.
Cita questa edizione
Lawson, Thomas William. Friday, the Thirteenth. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/friday-the-thirteenth.
Lawson, T. W. (2026). Friday, the thirteenth. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/friday-the-thirteenth (Original work published 1907)
Lawson, Thomas William. Friday, the Thirteenth. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/friday-the-thirteenth.
@book{lawson2026friday,
author = {Lawson, Thomas William},
title = {Friday, the Thirteenth},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/friday-the-thirteenth},
note = {First published 1907}
}
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