Exchange Alley Devlog 1: Free book inside - Everyman his own broker

One of my favourite parts of game development is diving into the research prior to fleshing out the mechanics of a game, learning the real history and turning it into an interactive experience.

So, when I discovered that a book titled Every Man His Own Broker; or A Guide to Exchange Alley had been published about the very core of my game Exchange Alley, well, what better material could exist?

Every Man His Own Broker; or A Guide to Exchange Alley received 14 editions, each of which were updated with the latest news of the time and featured the author, Thomas Mortimer's own opinions on the value of companies at the time, including a persistent attack on the value of East India Company. Thomas Mortimer also explained how to value a share, how broker's operate (and advice on avoiding them) and some of the general scams of the day to warn newcomers. He also, fascinatingly, mentions women taking part in trading, though through male intermediaries.

Unfortunately, it is nigh impossible to get your hands on a good scan of this book. Originally I relied on the Kindle store but could only find frankly poorly done OCR scans which were priced unfairly for such little care, as is the case with many such old works. Not wanting to parse through a muddled interpretation of such an excellent first hand source I thought, how hard could it be to make our own?

I shall not bore you with the details, but the book is not exceedingly long, and aside from some annotations which seem to go on far too long and the use of f instead of s (confusingly prevalent in the period which I hope you'll forgive me for modernising) it reads quite well.

With no desire to profit off of Mr Mortimer's work, I have uploaded my own transcription from a free and publicly accessible scan of (I believe) the 10th edition of the book which can be found on Wikipedia.

You can download it at the link provided, no email is required and I have included screenshots for the calculation tables from the original edition where they appeared in the original work rather than trying to imitate the style.

I would encourage anyone with a passing interest in financial history to give it a read (after all, it is free). One of the neat things about researching more modern history is the prevalence of these kinds of first hand accounts. 

If you would like to support me in the endeavour of keeping a little piece of history alive, then a Wishlist for Exchange Alley on Steam, which inspired me to add my own chapter to the history of Every Man His Own Broker; or A Guide to Exchange Alley, would be gratefully received.