Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$999.00 + shipping
Description: Three volumes. A married set, with all volumes printed in 1805, but the first two printed in Glasgow, and the third in London. Octavo, calf (hardcover, leather), calf labels, [4], lv [Life & Doctrine of Smith, 360 pp + [2], iii, [3 blanks], 567 pp + [2], 448, [48 Index] pp. Barely Good; covers worn, scuffed, several joints tender. European History, Economics, World History, Leather. JBS
Seller: Lighthouse Books, ABAA, Dade City, FL, U.S.A.
Price: US$1000.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: 3 volumes 11th edition, newly rebound in 1/2 calf, gilt spines, new leather labels, (spine title:Smith's Wealth of Nations) marbled boards, new endpapers, Includes index (v. 3), with pub's advert. at end of vol.3. moderate foxing on 18 pp of vol.3 which has been stablized, Smith's Wealth of Nations is generally admitted to have originated the study of political economy as a separate department of scientic inquiry. It is therefore in every manual and history of the subject. The 3 vols. offered have been professionally rebound by a skilled artisan.
Seller: Harry E Bagley Books Ltd, Fredericton, NB, Canada
Price: US$1526.43 + shipping
Description: 11th edn. 3 vols. 8vo (8¾ x 5½ ins). Contemporary speckled calf, spines gilt tooled in six compartments, boards with double gilt fillet borders, marbled edges and endpapers (some wear at joints but boards still firm; corners rather rubbed and bumped). Pp. [iv] + xl + 515 + [5] blank [&] [ii] + viii + 567 + [5] blank [&] [ii] + viii + 590 + [2] blank (small tear at bottom edge of pp. iii-iv vol I and pp. 29-36 and 336-354 vol III heavily spotted; previous owner's engraved cards front paste-downs and bookplate on front free endpaper of vol I).
Seller: Rothwell & Dunworth (ABA, ILAB), Dulverton, United Kingdom
Price: US$1750.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: The 11th Edition; with Notes, Supplementary Chapters, and a Life of Dr. Smith by William Playfair. In three volumes. 8vo. 8 1/2" by 5 1/2". Very good in contemporary tree calf over boards. Smooth spines with elaborate gilt panels, gilt lettering (on black label) in second panel and in fourth panel. Page edges are blue speckled but also age- and soil-darkened; small stain on the side edges of Vol II. Gilt dentelles on external board edges, albeit rubbed in many places. Fore-edge corners and adjacent edges are rubbed through. Front spine hinges on Vol I and III are cracked in several places but holding. All upper edges at heads of spines have some degree of splitting and with loss on the front corners of 3/16" or less; edge and corners at spine tail of Vol I are split. All volumes have the same bookplate. End papers have transfers stains and glue stains from binding. Vol I does not have a half-title page, apparently as issued. Title page is followed by four pages of Advertisements for the Third, Fourth and this edition; Preface (3), and 515 numbered pages; Vol II has a half-title page, title page, and contents (viii), 567 numbered pages of which 562 are text, followed by Appendix; Vol III has a half-title page, title page, and contents (viii), 590 numbered pages of which 537 are text and the remaining are Index, and two pages of ads. Internal foxing only on end papers, text pages are age-toned, else internally clean. Text blocks are sound. Please use close-up options for best inspection and in support of condition descriptions. Additional photos available at your request.
Seller: R & G Bliss Books, Excelsior, MN, U.S.A.
Price: US$2587.50 + shipping
Description: 3 volumes. 8.5 x 5.5, gilt ruled diced calf, 515, 567, 590 pp with index + publishers ads, covers edge worn and abraided, spines darkened and scuffed, hinges starting, front hinge of volume 1 broken with cover detached, contents nice with some toning and light spotting to title page of first volume. Eleventh ed. SWAF. A good bookbinder could really spruce up this set!.
Seller: John K King Used & Rare Books, Detroit, MI, U.S.A.
Price: US$3180.06 + shipping
Description: First Playfair edition of "the first and greatest classic of modern economic thought" (PMM), the eleventh overall following its first publication in 1776. A writer on political economy best known as the inventor of three fundamental forms of statistical graph (the time-series line graph and the bar and pie charts), William Playfair (1759-1823) paired sharp criticism of Smith's ideas with supplementary material bringing the work up to date. In his Wealth of Nations, Smith "begins with the thought that labour is the source from which a nation derives what is necessary to it. The improvement of the division of labour is the measure of productivity and in it lies the human propensity to barter and exchange. The Wealth of Nations ends with a history of economic development, a definitive onslaught on the mercantile system, and some prophetic speculations on the limits of economic control" (PMM). "The Wealth of Nations had no rival in scope or depth when published and is still one of the few works in its field to have achieved classic status, meaning simply that it has sustained yet survived repeated reading, critical and adulatory, long after the circumstances which prompted it have become the object of historical enquiry" (ODNB). Goldsmiths' 19009; Kress B.4976; Tribe 84. See Printing and the Mind of Man 221. 3 volumes, octavo (211 x 128 mm). Contemporary tree calf, smooth spines gilt in compartments with black label, brown speckled edges. 19th-century bookplate to front pastedowns and ownership signature to title pages of one John S. Livingston, page of notes on terminal leaf of vol. III in same hand. With half-title in vol. III, without in vol. II, not issued in vol. I; with terminal advertisements in vol. III. Joints and extremities neatly repaired, some foxing to contents. A handsome copy.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
Price: US$4770.09 + shipping
Description: First Playfair edition of "the first and greatest classic of modern economic thought" (PMM), the eleventh overall following its first publication in 1776. A writer on political economy best known as the inventor of three fundamental forms of statistical graph (the time-series line graph and the bar and pie charts), William Playfair (1759-1823) paired sharp criticism of Smith's ideas with supplementary material bringing the work up to date. In his Wealth of Nations, Smith "begins with the thought that labour is the source from which a nation derives what is necessary to it. The improvement of the division of labour is the measure of productivity and in it lies the human propensity to barter and exchange. The Wealth of Nations ends with a history of economic development, a definitive onslaught on the mercantile system, and some prophetic speculations on the limits of economic control" (PMM). "The Wealth of Nations had no rival in scope or depth when published and is still one of the few works in its field to have achieved classic status, meaning simply that it has sustained yet survived repeated reading, critical and adulatory, long after the circumstances which prompted it have become the object of historical enquiry" (ODNB). Goldsmiths' 19009; Kress B.4976; Printing and the Mind of Man 221; Tribe 84. 3 volumes, octavo (204 x 125 mm). Contemporary calf, twin red morocco labels, smooth spines gilt in compartments, gilt rule and blind floral roll border to covers, brown speckled edges. Bound without half-titles, with terminal advertisement in vol. III. Neat ownership signature "A. Crawford 1824" to front free blank, pencilled annotation to vol. I p. 274. Slight scuffing to calf, slight stain to vol. I p. 306 and to fore edge of vol. III pp. 513-30, contents otherwise clean. An attractive copy.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
Price: US$5406.10 + shipping
Description: An attractive set of Smith's two key works, uniformly bound in contemporary russia, comprising the ninth edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, and the first Playfair edition of The Wealth of Nations, together offering a coherent and unified system of economic and moral philosophy. The Theory of Moral Sentiments, first published in 1759, "would be enough to assure the author a respected place among Scottish moral philosophers, and Smith himself ranked it above the Wealth of Nations. Its central idea is the concept, closely related to conscience, of the impartial spectator who helps man to distinguish right from wrong. For the same purpose, Immanuel Kant invented the categorical imperative and Sigmund Freud the superego" (Niehans, 62). It is in The Theory of Moral Sentiments that Smith first uses his famous "invisible hand" concept, a metaphor that he repeated in the Wealth of Nations: that self-seeking men are often "led by an invisible hand. and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society" (vol. I, p. 386). The Theory of Moral Sentiments laid the groundwork for The Wealth of Nations, which is universally recognized as the foundation of modern economics; "the first and greatest classic of modern economic thought" (PMM). "The Wealth of Nations had no rival in scope or depth when published and is still one of the few works in its field to have achieved classic status, meaning simply that it has sustained yet survived repeated reading, critical and adulatory, long after the circumstances which prompted it have become the object of historical enquiry" (ODNB). The work was first published in 1776. This edition, the eleventh overall, is the first to be edited by William Playfair (1759-1823), a writer on political economy best known as the inventor of three fundamental forms of statistical graph (the time-series line graph and the bar and pie charts). Playfair paired sharp criticism of Smith's ideas with supplementary material bringing the work up to date. Theory of Moral Sentiments: Tribe 74; Vanderblue, p. 38. Wealth of Nations: Goldsmiths' 19009; Kress B.4976; Tribe 84. See Printing and the Mind of Man 221; Jürg Niehans, A History of Economic Theory: Classic Contributions, 1720-1980, 1994; Henry William Spiegel, The Growth of Economic Thought, 1991. 2 works in 5 volumes, octavo (212 x 126 mm). Contemporary straight-grain russia, smooth spines with wide-gilt bands forming compartments lettered and ornamented in gilt, double gilt fillet and blind border to covers, grey endpapers, marbled edges. Bound with half-titles, and terminal advertisement leaf at end of Wealth of Nations; leaf 2I7 in Wealth vol. III bound preceding 2I3. Slight rubbing and wear around joints and extremities, all bindings holding firm; terminal binder's blank with loss in Theory of Moral Sentiments vol. II; Wealth of Nations with foxing to contents, short closed tear at head of vol. I leaf N1, and short closed tear at head of terminal leaves. A very good set.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
Price: US$5406.10 + shipping
Description: First Playfair edition of "the first and greatest classic of modern economic thought" (PMM); a superlative copy in the original boards, and with an excellent provenance, coming from the library of free-market Nobel Laureate George Stigler, with his bookplate loosely inserted. George Stigler (1911-1991) was, like Smith, a lifelong advocate of free market economics, and a leader of the Chicago School. In 1947, he co-founded, with Hayek, the Mont Pelerin Society, the intellectual vanguard of the neoliberal counter-revolution against encroaching government control, later serving as its president from 1976-78. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1982 "for his seminal studies of industrial structures, functioning of markets, and causes and effects of public regulation". George Stigler received a stock of personalized bookplates in his lifetime, but did not use them; they were loosely inserted into his volumes after his death by his family. The Wealth of Nations was first published in 1776, with this the eleventh edition overall, and the first under Playfair's editorship. "The Wealth of Nations had no rival in scope or depth when published and is still one of the few works in its field to have achieved classic status, meaning simply that it has sustained yet survived repeated reading, critical and adulatory, long after the circumstances which prompted it have become the object of historical enquiry" (ODNB). The editor William Playfair (1759-1823), a writer on political economy best known as the inventor of three fundamental forms of statistical graph (the time-series line graph and the bar and pie charts), paired sharp criticism of Smith's ideas with supplementary material bringing the work up to date. Goldsmiths' 19009; Kress B.4976; Tribe 84. 3 volumes, octavo. Uncut in original boards. Housed in a black cloth flat-back box with dark red leather label. Contemporary engraved ticket and a few botanical specimens loosely inserted; neat contemporary ownership signature of G. Stachemberg on front pastedowns of vols I and II and front free endpaper of vol. III, with "Le Comte de Stachemberg" bookplate loosely inserted. Slight loss at foot of spines, occasional light foxing, generally in superb condition: fresh, unpressed copies.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom