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“Fisher’s aim in his Mathematical Investigations was to present a general mathematical model of the determination of value and prices. He claimed to have specified the equations of general economic equilibrium for the case of independent goods (chapter 4, sec. 10), although the only mathematical economist whose work he had consulted was Jevons. With commendable honesty he recognizes the priority of Walras’s Eléments d’économie politique pure (1874) as far as the equations of the general equilibrium are concerned and likewise the priority of Edgeworth’s Mathematical Psychics (1881) as regards the concept of utility surfaces. It appears that, although only a student, Fisher had independently developed a theory of general economic equilibrium that was identical to part of Walras’s and included the concept of the indifference surface, one of the fundamental bases of modern economic theory” ( IESS V, pp. 476–7). Octavo. Original black cloth, spine and front cover lettered in gilt. Housed in custom black cloth slipcase. With 2 photographic frontispieces and numerous diagrams to the text. Minor sunning to spine and peripheral rubbing; a near- fine copy. ¶ Batson, p. 134; Fisher E–8. Mark Blaug, Great Economists before Keynes , 1986, pp. 77–81. £4,500 [149040] 72 FLEMING, Ian. From Russia, With Love. London: Jonathan Cape, 1957 First edition of the fifth novel in the James Bond series, and the first of Fleming’s novels for which Richard Chopping designed the jacket. Octavo. Original black cloth, titles to spine and revolver and rose motif to front cover in metallic red and silver. With dust jacket. Housed in a custom black quarter morocco solander box. A couple of tiny spots to edges, else a fine copy, tight, square and clean, in an exceptionally fresh example of the dust jacket, not price-clipped, unusually bright and sharp. ¶ Gilbert A5a (1.1). £12,500 [146995]
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70 FISHER, Irving. The Rate of Interest. Its nature, determination and relation to economic phenomena. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1907 First edition of Fisher’s third and most elusive work, much later reworked and republished as The Theory of Interest (1930). “His generous acknowledgement of the priorities of Rae and Böhm-Bawerk did not allow the powerful originality of his own performance to stand out as it should. The ‘impatience’ theory of interest is but an element of it. Much better would its nature have been rendered by some such title as: Another Theory of the Capitalist Process . Among the many novelties of detail, the introduction of the concept of marginal efficiency of capital (he called it marginal rate of return over cost) deserved particular notice” (Schumpeter, p. 872). Octavo. Original green cloth, spine lettered in gilt. Many tables in text. Ownership inscription dated 1908 on front free endpaper. Spine ends and corners lightly rubbed, inner hinges cracked but firm, endpapers a little darkened; a very good copy. ¶ Batson, p. 79; Fisher E–97; Mattioli 1287; Sraffa, 1763. £4,250 [152009] 71 FISHER, Irving. Mathematical Investigations in the Theory of Value and Prices. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1926
PRESENTATION COPY TO ECONOMIST HERBERT FRANKEL
Second printing in book form (first 1925), presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “To Mr. Herbert Frankel with the compliments of Irving Fisher. March, 1927”. Development economist S. Herbert Frankel (1903–1996) published various works of economics in a long career spanning 1926 to 1982, and is best remembered in his role as professor in the Economics of Underdeveloped Countries at Oxford University 1946–71 and also as a fellow of Nuffield College. He finished his PhD at the London School of Economics in 1927, around the time Fisher gave him this volume. Later a member of the libertarian Mont Pelerin Society, Frankel’s economic vision for development and growth in all nations included social mobility in a free market, which put him at odds with segregationist political systems, particularly in his native South Africa. Indeed, Frankel fought to implement these anti-segregationist views as economic advisor to South African and Southern Rhodesian governments from 1941 to 1958. This is a photo-engraved reprint of Fisher’s doctoral work, first published in the Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1892, a “startlingly original PhD thesis” (Blaug) which expounds the monetary theories for which Fisher became famous and established his international reputation. It was first published in book form in October 1925, this second printing following in May 1926.
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