Adam Smith

A first edition copy of Smith's An Inquiry Into The Nature And Causes Of The Wealth Of Nations.

• Sold as a set of 2 volumes.
• Adam Smith (Scottish).
• An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. By Adam Smith, LL.D. and F.R.S. Formerly Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow.
• London: Printed for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell, in the Strand, 1776.
• Quarto.
• Bound in contemporary gilt-ruled sprinkled calf, re-backed but retaining original red and green morocco lettering pieces, bottom and fore-edges untrimmed, with wide margins.

The first edition of the ‘first and greatest classic of modern economic thought’ (PMM). Smith (d.1790) spent ten years writing and perfecting The Wealth of Nations, the popularity of which surpassed its publisher’s expectations upon release; the estimated supply of between 500 and 750 first edition copies was exhausted within the first six months of printing, and four further editions were issued within Smith’s lifetime. 

As the title explains, the work is fundamentally an investigation into what makes certain nations prosperous. Smith’s originality lies in locating the roots of this comparative wealth in the specialization of labor which had occurred in developed economies, for the ‘annual labor of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniences of life which it annually consumes, and which consist always, either in the immediate produce of that labor, or in what is purchased with that produce from other nations’ (Introduction).