The “Father of Security Analysis”
1894-1976
The purpose of this brief guide is to provide some basic biographical information about Benjamin Graham and to direct you to his books and articles. Given that Graham is so closely connected to the concept of “value investing” it is only appropriate that we add value to this bibliography by providing electronically the complete text of articles when possible. As well, we have rounded up reviews which are also generally presented in full text. Therefore, this document should allow you to appraise Graham’s work and see how it has been viewed by others over a long period of time. (Note: The full text of documents will only be available to members of the UWO/Ivey scholarly community. The complete citation is provided so others can find printed versions of the articles and for bibliographical purposes).
Graham was born in England, but moved as an infant to New York. He attended Columbia, graduated in 1914 and was long associated with that university. For those of us without portfolios and a firm grasp of finance and investments, perhaps the most impressive facts about Graham relate to his varied intellectual interests. He was truly a “renaissance man” who, upon graduation, was offered teaching positions in three departments – English, Philosophy and Mathematics. He was also a student of Latin and Greek and he translated from Spanish a novel by Uruguayan author Mari Benedetti. He was reportedly a good teacher (one of his students was Warren Buffett) and he was successful in business. In the early 1930s he published, with David Dodd, Security Analysis, which became a classic. Later his Intelligent Investor became known as the “bible of value investing”.
Graham died in 1976 at the age of 82. An obituary is found in the New York Times, Sept. 23, 1976, p.44. In 2005, additional biographical information is found on the web and an example is provided at this Buffett-related site. Other suggestions are found at the end of the bibliography.
Presented below are: 1) Selected books by Graham with some reviews of those books; 2) Selected articles and reviews by Graham and 3) Some suggestions for further reading.