Anne L. Murphy was joint winner of the Economic History Society (UK) First Monograph Prize 2010 for this book. She has focused on the period before the famous South Sea Bubble stock market crash of 1720. The bubble has received much attention. The years proceeding it have been largely ignored. There are the classic works by W. R. Scott (The Constitution and Finance of English, Scottish and Irish Joint-Stock Companies to 1720, 3 vols. [Cambridge, 1910–12]) and P. G. M. Dickson (The Financial Revolution in England [London, 1967]). However, Scott's three volumes are coming up for their centenary years, and Dickson's book was written in the 1960s. Murphy provides a more modern approach and far more detail than Scott and Dickson were able to do. Her time frame is far more limited. As the title of her book suggests, she has investigated share trading and ownership patterns in the earliest years of the English stock market. She considers how the market began to develop and also who invested there. The ledgers of Charles Blunt (broker) are examined in detail, but Murphy also uses a number of other sources of data to show transactions undertaken. Some data are provided in useful appendices. However, the book is not a purely cliometric study. Like most financial historians, Murphy recognizes that the social side of investing was also important. She discusses how people learned about investment opportunities and how the stock market was represented to them. Qualitative sources have not been overlooked.

The book will be of particular interest to economic historians and especially financial historians. Murphy's earlier work on Charles Blunt's ledgers is well known within the UK economic history community, at least. The book will be a useful addition to any collection that already includes the works of Dickson and Scott. There are sections that might attract a wider audience. There is a chapter on the development of a financial press and another on the networks of information. This is where readers will find Daniel Defoe, plays, and coffeehouses. These are familiar concerns to many scholars of the period. However, Murphy is interested in how the markets actually functioned rather than how Defoe said they functioned. Many well-known texts mention stockjobbing but are vague as to how “jobbing” was carried out in practice. The book explains how brokers, speculators, and ordinary investors went about their business. These explanations are aimed at nonspecialists, and the language used is clear and straightforward.

The financial developments of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries are often linked together under the name the Financial Revolution. The broad-brush approach claims that this revolution consisted of three major events: the founding of the National Debt; the creation of a stock market, and the foundation of the Bank of England. Furthermore, it was all apparently due to William of Orange and his advisors bringing Dutch financial knowledge to England after the Glorious Revolution. Financial historians have argued for some time that this story is an oversimplification. Henry Roseveare's book, The Financial Revolution, 1660–1760 (London, 1991), provides a more nuanced account. Roseveare argued that financial changes were being made before William even arrived on English shores and that there was no Whig history of financial progress. Murphy belongs to this school of thought. She shows that there were problems with the financial changes but also that people's lives were being affected by the new investment choices.

On the more technical side, Murphy discusses what these choices were. The straightforward joint-stock company share was available to the ordinary investor. There were also more sophisticated instruments. Murphy shows that brokers were using futures and options contracts. She considers how close the early market was to the theoretical ideal of an efficient market. The answer is that it was far from being efficient. The market was difficult to regulate, and it did not function with the ease that its modern counterparts do. The transfer of information was linked to how fast a messenger could travel. The various choices on offer might have few close substitutes, limiting the opportunities for arbitrage. Misinformation could lead to mispricing of company shares, especially for smaller concerns. Insider trading also occurred. The market went through some booms and busts even before the South Sea Bubble. Its early years educated a generation in the art of investing in shares. The stock market has been with us ever since.

The book deserves its prize from the Economic History Society. It is written with a sensitivity to both economics and history. It will certainly be useful to financial historians. For other readers, it is a good introduction to the early stock market. Literary criticism and various subfields of history deal with the stock market and its jobbers, brokers, and critics. This book may help other specialists put the novels, plays, newspapers, and pamphlets of the period in their true context. It is readable and explains financial terms in plain language. It does not overlook the social side of investing. It allows readers to visualize what broking and investing meant in practice.