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HOFMANN’S “GEGENWÄRTIGER ZUSTAND DERER FINANTZEN” constitute one of the very earliest German accounts the of the Mississippi Bubble. It explain the complex finances of the Mississippi Company and of France during Law's fiscal program and the Company and its activities in Louisiana are also extensively described.

Christian Gottfried Hoffmann (1692-1735) was a prominent teacher of state law. Initially intended for theology, he pursued law instead, studying at the University of Leipzig from 1711 and earning his doctorate in 1716.
In 1723, Hoffmann became a professor of state law in Frankfurt an der Oder and later joined the Berlin Academy of Sciences. Hoffmann's work spanned various areas of legal science, with a particular focus on state law and legal history.

John Law (1671 – 1729) was a Scottish economist and financial innovator who became famous for his role in the financial and economic affairs of France during the early 18th century. He is best known for his association with the Mississippi Company and the subsequent Mississippi Bubble which was one of the earliest and most notorious financial bubbles in history.
In the early 18th century, France faced significant financial challenges, and John Law proposed a plan to address them. He advocated for the establishment of the Mississippi Company, a trading company granted a monopoly on trade with the French colonies in North America. To finance the company and alleviate France's financial woes, Law issued paper money and encouraged the public to invest in the Mississippi Company's shares.

The value of the Mississippi Company's shares skyrocketed, creating a speculative bubble as people rushed to invest in the hope of making quick profits. However, the bubble eventually burst in 1720, leading to a financial crisis. The collapse of the Mississippi Bubble had severe consequences for the French economy, and John Law's reputation suffered as a result.

John Law's ideas and experiments with paper money and financial markets were influential and his legacy includes contributing to the development of modern financial systems. However, his association with the financial bubble in France tarnished his reputation and he spent the final part of his life in exile.

Sabin 26837

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PETER LANGENDIJK’S “QUINCAMPOIX”, first German translation, published the same year as the original, of a comedy that delves into the effects of Europe's largest speculation crisis of the 18th century, known as the South Sea Bubble, on the merchants of Amsterdam. The play is set in the huisgezin family household of Bonaventuur (which translates to "good adventure"), an Amsterdam merchant caught up in the speculation.

“It may thus seem surprising that the only version of Pieter Langendijk’s Quincampoix to appear in translation was published in German. That surprise would not be misplaced, since popular and scholarly knowledge about the crisis of 1720 has long been focused on Paris, London, and Amsterdam and their respective national hinterlands. And with good reason, since it was in those centres that the stock-trading boom leading to the bubbles originated or was accelerated, thanks to a combination of new state practices and the mobilisation of pre-existing financial networks. Recent research has made clear, however, that the events of 1720 not only had their origins in the transnational and global entanglements of European states but also had global repercussions.”

"Pieter Langendijk’s Quincampoix was translated into German quite soon after its appearance in Dutch. The translator is unnamed. Although the title page of the German version bears the date November 1720, it was being offered for sale in Hamburg as early as mid-October of that year. Thus, the statement of the advertiser (echoing the work’s title page) that the play was ‘now being performed at theatre in Amsterdam’ [jetzund auf dem Theatro zu Amsterdam auffgeführet] seems a plausible indication of its immediacy. It was among the offerings at the Leipzig book fair the following April, but did not appear at subsequent fairs. Copies survive in libraries in Göttingen, Hannover, Leipzig, Schwerin, and Weimar; those held by the Patriotische Gesellschaft (an Enlightenment civic association) in Hamburg and the State Library [Staatsbibliothek] in Berlin have been lost to fire and wartime bombing respectively. As German bubble texts go, then, Quincampoix seems to have had a relatively limited circulation, which is in keeping with the fact that the adaptations to the original Dutch text clearly have a specific intended audience, namely, residents of the Hanseatic city of Hamburg.” (Rosenhaft: Transnational Networks in 1720 and the German Quincampoix).