- Sep 12, 2008
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I am looking for the source of the original 419 story, which first showed up in the late 19th century along the east coast of South America. The same story was told by Joseph Conrad in Nostromo and by O Henry in Cabbages and Kings.
The essential story is that a south american dictator, seeing his days numbered, ran for the coast with the national treasury. He managed to hide it somewhere in small town on the coast, let his family or someone in on the secret of its location, but he was caught and shot before he himself could escape.
Does anyone know the country and the guy involved? Enquiring minds want to know.
The stories are too close together in place, time and even locale descriptions that both authors seem to have read the same accounts. Since the stories plots are so similar, and the authors well known, if one had just copied the other, there would have been one really amazing plagiarism lawsuit, so it seems that they were both writing about the same event out of the papers. It would be cool to know what was going on.
The essential story is that a south american dictator, seeing his days numbered, ran for the coast with the national treasury. He managed to hide it somewhere in small town on the coast, let his family or someone in on the secret of its location, but he was caught and shot before he himself could escape.
Does anyone know the country and the guy involved? Enquiring minds want to know.
The stories are too close together in place, time and even locale descriptions that both authors seem to have read the same accounts. Since the stories plots are so similar, and the authors well known, if one had just copied the other, there would have been one really amazing plagiarism lawsuit, so it seems that they were both writing about the same event out of the papers. It would be cool to know what was going on.
