In 1876, a man named Henry Wickham smuggled seventy thousand rubber tree seeds out of the rain forests of Brazil and delivered them to Victorian England`s most prestigious scientists at Kew Gardens. Those seeds, planted around the world in England`s colonial outposts, gave rise to the great rubber boom of the early twentieth century - an explosion of entrepreneurial and scientific industry that would change the world. The story of how Wickham got his hands on those seeds - a sought-after prize for many suffered and died - is the stuff of legend. In this lively account of obsession, greed, bravery and betrayal, author and journalist Joe Jackson brings to life a classic Victorian fortune-hunter and the empire that fueled, then abandoned, him. ”The Thief at the End of the World” is a thrilling true story of reckless courage and ambition.