Actions are said to speak louder than words, but the right words published at the right time themselves inspire action. We celebrate the legacy of trailblazing writers, thinkers, activists, scientists, and travellers through exceptional first editions, special copies and objects, and significant archival material.
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Peter Harrington l o n d o n
Subject index Crime 9, 16, 31, 37, 40, 47, 72, 88, 164 Healthcare 12, 71, 98, 120 People’s rights 35, 118, 125, 135, 138, 167, 172–3 Philanthropy 24, 60, 77, 116, 150 Population 25, 56, 66–7, 78, 80, 101–02, 117, 126, 130, 152, 157, 165 Slavery 32, 55, 147, 160, 174 Statistics 20, 37, 117, 126, 128, 152 Treatment of the poor 24, 29, 30, 37, 46, 65, 72, 145, 162, 168, 174 Usury and profiteering 15, 28, 59, 95, 104, 121, 158, 174 Welfare 19, 30, 60, 98, 135, 144 Women 5, 54, 120, 137, 146, 172–3
A glance through this catalogue shows that little of what we have experienced in the last 18 months is new. Since time immemorial, the world has suffered plagues, hardship, and restricted freedoms. If we had ample opportunity during the pandemic to learn care, consideration, and kindness, so did our forebears. They witnessed the great plague of London in 1655. They experienced monetary shortages and worried over the morals of usury and profiteering. They discovered the problems of population growth and food shortages, and suggested solutions. The proper role of governments in all this was hotly debated, from the early works of Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes to the defining texts of liberalism by John Stuart Mill and Friedrich von Hayek. The catalogue contains a rich variety of material showing how humanity has approached welfare issues. William Petty and others pioneered statistical enquiries. Charles Booth and his followers made social surveys of life and labour in London. John Bellers, Thomas Firmin, and Sir Matthew Hale wrote in defence of the poor, and used their wealth and success for philanthropic purposes, an early form of public welfare. Robert Owen was to do the same in the 19th century. Debates about usury and interest-taking have been perennial since Roman times. Buoninsegni, Lessius, Filmer, Bentham, and others discussed best business practice and made arguments for and against excessive profit-making. The profitable business of slavery was similarly debated, with passionate arguments on both sides. Concerns about population increase reached a high point with Malthus’s Essay of 1798. The catalogue includes not only a copy of the first edition of the Essay , but also a good number of replies to and criticisms of it. Authors such as Everett, Godwin, Jarrold, and Place suggested social amelioration of the problem. A superb presentation copy of the much enlarged second edition, pretty much a new work, shows that Malthus too realized that his alarming theory required social remedy. Nineteenth-century social enquiries in Europe and America, new socialist thinking, and the modern science of economics have led to government social reform and the creation of what we now know as the welfare state. Is there still room for improvement? Only time will tell.
Ian Smith: ian@peterharrington.co.uk John Ryan: john@peterharrington.co.uk
Front cover image from William Booth , In Darkest England and the Way Out , item 24 . Design: Nigel Bents
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1 ALLAIS, Maurice. Économie & Intérêt; Présentation nouvelle des problèmes fondamentaux relatives au rôle économique du taux de l’intérêt et de leurs solutions. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1947 An exceptional copy First edition, an exceptionally nice copy. Économie et Intérêt is Allais’s second major publication, a massive work on capital and interest which has formed the basis for the so-called “golden rule of accumulation”: that to maximise real income, the optimum rate of interest should equal the growth rate of the economy. Allais did not publish in English until late in his career and as a result was slow to receive the international recognition that was his due. 2 volumes, octavo. Original printed paper wrappers, with the wraparound band. Housed in a black cloth solander box by the Chelsea Bindery. Spines lightly creased, slight tear to wraparound band, else a fine copy. ¶ The New Palgrave I , pp. 78–9. £3,250 [96946] 2 ANGELL, Norman. The Great Illusion. London: William Heinemann, 1910 First edition in book form, first impression, with a card pasted to the front pastedown inscribed from the author to Austrian economic historian Robert Eisler. In September 1909 Angell “published a pamphlet, Europe’s Optical Illusion , to warn that ‘the complex financial interdependence of the capitalists of the world’ ( Europe’s Optical Illusion , p. 44) made even a successful war of conquest counter- productive because of the high costs of the attendant economic dislocation; and a year later he issued a book-length version
under the title The Great Illusion . . . [It] became a best-seller, selling over a million copies, being translated into twenty-five languages, and transforming its author’s life” ( ODNB ). One of the most influential books of the first half of the 20th century, The Great Illusion is considered “the first practical discussion of the possibility of preventing war” ( DNB ). Eisler, who was the author of the Depression-era work Stable Money: The Remedy for the Economic World Crisis (1933), taught courses on monetary policy schemes at the Sorbonne in Paris and was affiliated with the Paris office of the League of Nations. Angell was a devoted member of the League of Nations Union from his time of joining the executive committee in 1925. Octavo. Original green cloth, spine and covers lettered in black. Extremities rubbed, spine ends and corners bumped, some foxing to contents, overall a very good copy. £375 [119679] 3 ARCO, Giambattista Gherardo d’. Della Influenza del Ghetto Nello Stato. Venize: Dalle stampe di Gaspare Storti, 1782 Opposing Jewish ghettoization First edition of this work addressing the delicate problem of Jewish communities in the cities of Europe at the end of the 18th century, and the concentration of mercantile activities in the hands of small Jewish groups; d’Arco proposes the gradual end of ghettoization, and the integration of the Jewish community into mainstream European life and culture. Although not expressly anti-Semitic, the work engendered controversy and reactions for its hostility to Jewish business practices, and for its claims that Jews felt natural animosity towards Christians. The most notable reaction was Benedetto Frizzi’s 1784 counterblast Difesa Contro gli Attacchi Fatti alla Nazione Ebrea ( Defence Against Attacks made to the Jewish Nation ),
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in which Frizzi defended Jewish business activities as a vital economic activity in European countries, placing their success as due to their business acumen and low prices. D’Arco’s tract is now rare, with Library Hub listing only three copies in British institutions, in the British Library and the Cambridge and Leeds University libraries respectively. Octavo (183 × 117 mm). Recent vellum to style, red speckled edges. A few marks to vellum; an excellent copy, contents clean and crisp. ¶ Not in Einaudi, Goldsmiths’, or Kress. £3,500 [129337] 4 BABBAGE, Charles. On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures. London: Charles Knight, 1832 [but 1833] Presentation copy to the industrialist Pascoe Grenfell Third edition, revised and enlarged, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the initial blank, “Pascoe Grenfel [ sic ] Esqre with the Authors Compliments”. Shortly after receipt Grenfell has added underneath, “Given to my dear Daughter Charlotte Maria March 1833 Pascoe Grenfell”. The industrialist and politician Pascoe Grenfell (1761– 1838) made his name alongside his father and uncle as a merchant and dealer in tin and copper ores; the family firm Pascoe Grenfell & Sons remained a major copper producer for most of the 19th century. He served as MP for Great Marlow, Buckinghamshire (1802–20) and MP for Penryn in his native Cornwall (1820–26), associating himself in the Commons with the Grenville party and with the abolitionists. “Recognized as an expert on financial matters Grenfell was instrumental in the introduction of the periodical publication of accounts by the Bank of England, of which he was a vigilant observer. He was also governor of the Royal Exchange Assurance Company and a commissioner of the lieutenancy for London” ( ODNB ).
Charlotte Maria French (1812–1860) was one of Grenfell’s eleven daughters with his second wife Georgiana St Leger. Through her sister Fanny and brother-in-law Charles Kingsley, Charlotte was introduced to the historian James Anthony Froude (1818–1894), whom she married in 1849. “Spirited and with strong intellectual interests, Charlotte had infuriated her brother-in-law Kingsley both by her interest in Catholicism and her fondness for Spinoza . . . her critical annotations on her copy of The Nemesis of Faith [by Froude, published in 1849] suggest that she was far from intellectually docile. [She and her husband] began to write together, and Froude expected in the spring of 1850 that a jointly authored work would shortly appear in print” (Brady, p. 167). Another of Froude’s biographers describes Charlotte as the “most intellectual” of the Grenfell sisters (Markus, p. 50). An elemental work in the eventual development of all computational devices, On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures (first and second editions 1832) was Babbage’s most successful lifetime publication. It is considered “a turning point in economic writing and firmly established Babbage as a leading authority of the industrial movement” ( ODNB ). Duodecimo. Original purple moiré silk, rebacked preserving most of the original spine lettered in gilt (priced 6s.), pale pink endpapers. Engraved title page with tissue guard, diagrams and tables in text. With 2 pp. publisher’s advertisements at rear. Ownership inscription of British experimental physicist Patrick Blackett (1897–1974) to front free endpaper verso (“P. M. S. Blackett 1950”); Blackett was a distant relation of Babbage’s wife Georgiana Whitmore. Extremities lightly worn, small tear to cloth along fore edge of rear cover, inner hinges lined, title leaf and guard foxed as often, contents occasionally lightly marked but generally bright and clean, rear free endpaper recto neatly annotated in pencil with page ranges. A very good copy. ¶ Ciaran Brady, James Anthony Froude: An Intellectual Biography of a Victorian Prophet , OUP, 2013; Anthony Hyman, Charles Babbage, Pioneer of the Computer , Princeton UP, 1982; Julia Markus, J. Anthony Froude: The Last Undiscovered Great Victorian , Scribner, 2005. £2,500 [140241]
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6 BACON, Francis. The Essayes or Counsels, civill and morall, of Francis Lo. Verulam, Viscount St. Alban. London: John Haviland, 1632 From the library of economist Nassau William Senior Third Haviland edition, in contemporary vellum, the copy of the economist Nassau William Senior. In 1625 John Haviland published the first complete, and definitive, edition of Bacon’s essays, the last to appear in Bacon’s lifetime. Comprising fifty-eight essays, it was greatly expanded from the first edition, published in 1597, which numbered just ten essays within a slim octavo volume. The second Haviland edition appeared in 1629. It is different in two aspects: the contents table is arranged alphabetically rather than by pagination, and the fragment “Of the Colours of Good and Evill” is appended. The 1632 edition is a page-for-page resetting of the 1629 edition. This copy was later owned by Nassau William Senior (1790–1864), whom Karl Marx called the “bel-esprit of English economists, well-known, alike for his economical ‘science’ and for his beautiful style” ( Capital , vol. I, sect. III). After establishing himself as a well-respected member of the Political Economy Club in London, Senior was appointed the first incumbent of the Drummond Professorship of Political Economy at Oxford from 1825 to 1830. It was during this tenure “that he won wide respect as a lucid exponent of what was still an infant discipline” ( ODNB ). He published numerous pamphlets and articles. Small quarto (187 × 143 mm). Contemporary vellum, title handwritten in ink across fore edge of book block, “N: W: Senior” hand lettered twice in ink across front cover, the second now faded. Woodcut title page ornament, head- and tailpieces, initials. Pastedowns and free endpapers renewed, original endpapers preserved, pasted to pastedowns with some securing cloth to front inner hinge, each with Nassau William Senior’s name in ink; these may have been the
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5 BACHOFEN, Johann Jakob. Das Mutterrecht. Stuttgart: Krais & Hoffmann, 1861 Matriarchy ahead of patriarchy First edition of Bachofen’s most famous work, a founding text of social anthropology, arguing that matriarchy preceded patriarchy in the development of human society, based on a study of classical antiquity and of the tribal societies of his day. “From this premise Bachofen developed a whole evolutionary system. He maintained that feminine rule was not the earliest stage of social organization but arose as a reform superseding a still earlier stage of promiscuity. He attributed this development to the cult of female deities and to woman’s fundamental religiosity . . . His observations on woman’s social position influenced Marxist doctrine and helped eventually to lead to a complete change of view in sociological study and law” ( PMM ). Quarto (260 × 199 mm). Contemporary purple half morocco, spine lettered in gilt, black pebble-grain cloth sides, gilt patterned edges. Original wrappers bound in. With 9 leaves of plates, of which 3 folding. Early Russian bookseller’s label to the front pastedown, Russian library stamps and shelf marks to front wrapper and title, stamps repeated to plate versos, slip of German catalogue notes inserted. Rubbed, tips worn, binding firm, peripheral staining throughout, contents unmarked save for a few very minor pencilled annotations, browning to a few leaves. A good copy. ¶ Printing and the Mind of Man 349. £1,750 [121036]
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original initial and terminal blanks (A1 and 3C4) which are otherwise missing, as is very often the case. Pencil and ink marginal annotations to contents, some ostensibly in Senior’s hand. Later engraved portrait plate of Bacon, printed by James Sangster & Co. of London, cropped and laid in. Vellum soiled and darkened, spine slanted, paper strips strengthening and infilling title leaf along verso of fore edge and bottom inner corner, contents browned and sometimes soiled, tears to leaves Z1, 2P1, and 3A1 not affecting text; closed tear to 2N2 repaired; a good reading copy. ¶ ESTC S100364; Gibson 16; STC 1150. £1,250 [132335] 7 BAILEY, Samuel. Questions in political economy, Politics, Morals, Metaphysics, Polite Literature, and other branches of knowledge. London: R. Hunter, 1823 His first work in economics First edition of the author’s first work in the field of economics, preceding his influential Critical Dissertation on the Nature, Measures, and Causes of Value by two years. The Critical Dissertation was one of the most important treatises on the theory of value in the Ricardian period, acknowledged by Torrens in that economists’ shrine, the Political Economy Club, as having settled the question of value against Ricardo (Political Economy Club, p. 223). However, in the present work, Bailey exhibits a completely different light from the Critical Dissertation : here he appears basically a Ricardian, through the acceptance of James Mill’s Elements (which is defined as an “excellent elementary work” (p. 21) and repeatedly praised – striking, in view of the fierce exchanges which a few years later would take place between Bailey and Mill). Bailey shows himself very widely read in economics, quotes authorities as different as Steuart, Godwin, Say, and Torrens, but is still very far from the sharpness which his economic thought would show a few years later in the Critical Dissertation .
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Octavo (203 × 131 mm). Contemporary tree calf-patterned paper boards, sympathetically rebacked, printed paper spine label. Corners worn, inner hinges restored. Some edges roughly opened and the occasional light spot; a very good copy. ¶ Einaudi 249; Goldsmiths’ 23710; Hollander, p. 227; Kress C.1015; Mattioli 178; Menger, col. 414. Political Economy Club, Centenary Volume , Macmillan, 1921. £2,250 [148504] 8 BARNARD, Sir John. A Present for an Apprentice: or, a Sure Guide To gain both Esteem and Estate. London: [no publisher,] 1742 Early edition of the politician’s compendium of practical hints on everyday subjects, first published in 1740 at the height of his reputation. Barnard ( c .1685–1764) was elected lord mayor in 1737. A Present for an Apprentice is in the form of a lengthy letter addressed to the writer’s son, and is “imbued with strong Christian moralizing” ( ODNB ). It is the only work which can be confidently attributed to Barnard. Duodecimo (140 × 92 mm). Recent grey paper boards, title label to front cover printed in black. With the 3-page contents issued at the rear repositioned after the title page. Binding fine, a little toned and spotted, a very good copy. £400 [102360]
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9 BECCARIA, Cesare, marchese di. Traité des délits et des peines, traduit de l’italien. Lausanne: [no publisher,] 1766; [bound with:] VOLTAIRE . Commentaire sur le livre des délits et des peines, par un avocat de province. 1767 ; [and:] MUYART DE VOUGLANS, Pierre-François. Réfutation des principes hasardés dans le Traité des délits et peines. Lausanne & Paris: Desaint, 1767 A seminal work of criminal justice First edition in French of undoubtedly the most influential work on criminal justice in the 18th century, originally published in Italian in 1764, here bound with two contemporary responses by Voltaire and Muyart de Vouglans. Cesare Beccaria, Marchese Beccaria-Bonesana, a well-to- do Milanese professor of law and economics, had made many prison visits and was appalled at what he saw. His short book was immediately successful and widely influential in stimulating reform in many countries, including the nascent United States – Thomas Jefferson had a copy of the New-York edition of 1809 (Sowerby 2349). “Beccaria maintained that the gravity of the crime should be measured by its injury to society and that the penalties should be related to this. The prevention of crime he held to be of greater importance than its punishment, and the certainty of punishment of greater effect than its severity. He denounced the use of torture and secret judicial proceedings. He opposed capital punishment, which should be replaced by life imprisonment; crimes against property should be in the first place punished by fines, political crimes by banishment; and the conditions in prisons should be radically improved. Beccaria believed that the publication of criminal proceedings, verdicts and sentences, as well as furthering general education, would help to prevent crime. These ideas have now become so commonplace that it is difficult to appreciate their revolutionary impact at the time” ( PMM ).
The translator André Morellet was a French economist who contributed to the Encyclopédie . His translation is based on the third edition of Beccaria’s treatise and, according to the imprint, includes previously unpublished additions by the author. It was criticized for diverting widely from the original text, leading Beccaria to seek out another translator, whom he found in librarian Chaillou de Lisy. There were nonetheless several editions of Morellet’s translation and it is this text on which Voltaire and Diderot based their commentaries and annotations. Three works bound in one volume, octavo (149 × 90 mm). Contemporary mottled calf, red morocco spine label, raised bands, spine decorated gilt with central floral tools, blind rule border to sides, marbled endpapers, edges sprinkled blue and white. Armorial bookplate of the M. B. Bouhier de l’Ecluse to front free endpaper verso. Small round wormhole to rear joint, contents unaffected; margins trimmed quite closely, occasional light spotting and the odd stain; a very attractive volume. ¶ Printing and the Mind of Man 209 (for the first edition). £2,750 [145600] 10 BECCARIA, Cesare – FACCHINEI, Giorgio Benaglio. Note ed Osservazioni sul libro intitolato dei delitti e delle pene. [Venice: Zatta,] 1765 One of the earliest instances of “socialism” in print First edition of an important work of the Enlightenment with deep implications in philosophy, politics and economics – made all the more remarkable by its containing in a single page both one of the earliest instances of the term “socialist” in print and an early reference to the concept of “invisible hand”, pitched one against the other. Written in polemic against Beccaria’s momentous anonymously-published On Crimes and Punishments , but in fact much wider in scope, Facchinei’s Note ed Osservazioni was
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Scarce pairing of Bellamy’s utopian novels First editions, first printings, of Bellamy’s enormously popular Looking Backward 2000–1887 and its sequel Equality ; the first issue of both, Looking Backward with the misprint “wore” in line 8 on page 210 and the J. J. Arakelyan slug on the copyright page, Equality with the first issue jacket and very rare thus. Looking Backward 2000–1887 established Bellamy’s utopian themes of co-operation and brotherhood in an ideal socialist system, where clothes are recycled, jewels are worthless, and world communication has been simplified into a universal language. The work had an immediate political effect and contributed to the formation of numerous clubs across America campaigning for nationalisation of services. Equality expanded on these themes and a number of issues it was only able to treat briefly. Equality asserts in detail that “the establishment of economic equality did in fact mean incomparably more for women than for men” (p. 131), allowing them access to traditionally male-dominated trades, and freedom from the confines of 19th-century fashion. 2 works, octavo. Looking Backward: Original green cloth, titles to rounded spine and front cover in black, decorative vignette to spine and front cover in gilt. Slight rubbing to board edges, spot of wear to tips, light foxing to endpapers; a near-fine copy. Equality : Original pink cloth-backed boards, titles and frames to spine and front board in gilt and brown. With dust jacket. Spine very lightly browned, tiny bumps to spine ends, two small marks to head of rear board, a few corners creased, tape repair to short closed tear at head of front free endpaper. A near-fine copy, the binding square and firm, occasional neat pencil annotations to margins, in the scarce, slightly soiled dust jacket, with minor loss to spine ends, not price-clipped. ¶ Bleiler, Supernatural Fiction , p. 35; L. T. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516–1985: An Annotated, Chronological Bibliography , Garland Publishing, 1988, p. 56. £2,250 [137673]
described by Venturi as “a desperate and extreme defence of the traditional world”. It certainly was the most radical rejection of Beccaria’s ideas (including those relating to capital punishment and torture). Sophus Reinert has shown that Facchinei’s views were complex. He did not wholly disagree with Beccaria, Verri and their enlightened circle – notably on the subject of luxury as a potential factor in the increase of welfare in society. But he did take issue with what he describes, in this work, as “socialist” views (first on p. 9 and again later): the call for a worldwide secular and democratic revolution in the persuasion that there could exist a perfect society generated from the consent of truly free men. Rousseau’s Social Contract was, Facchinei believed, the germ of such ‘socialism’: a belief he judged to be wholly unfounded, and disproved by factual historical records. What history teaches us, Facchinei observes, is that the rise and fall of powers has been determined by the law of force, prevailing “by such circumstances and combinations that one can discern in this process (judging justly) the work and contribution of an invisible, yet very powerful hand” (ibid.). It is rare on the market: Rare Book Hub finds a single instance at auction, in 1953. Octavo (196 × 136 mm). Uncut in original carta rustica. Wood-engraved head- and tailpieces. Minor chip to spine, some discolouration around the edges, light occasional spotting, still a very good copy. ¶ Melzi II, p. 239; not in Einaudi. Franco Venturi, Il Settecento riformatore , Einaudi, 1969, pp. 707ff. S. A. Reinert, The Academy of Fisticuffs: political economy and commercial society in Enlightenment Italy , Harvard University Press, 2018, passim. £4,000 [119102] 11 BELLAMY, Edward. Looking Backward 2000–1887. Boston: Ticknor and Company, 1888 ; [together with:] Equality. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1897
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13 BENDA, Julien. La Trahison des clercs. Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1927 First edition of the author’s best-known book, copy V of 10 copies on velin pur fil creme lafuma, the rarest of the octavo issues, from a total edition of 3,650 octavo copies, alongside quarto issues. La Trahison des clercs was “undoubtedly one of the major events in political thought between the two wars. The ‘Clerc’ is what Benda conceived the intellectual to be, someone disengaged from the mere contingencies of existence and fighting for ideals which went beyond the demands of a given moment in space and time. In violent and brilliant invective, he attacked the intellectuals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries for having fallen short of this ideal by becoming the devoted advocates not of ideals, but of groups of existences, material and transient, such as a nation of a social class. The title of Benda’s manifesto became a kind of catch phrase which, by a curious irony of fate, inverted its original sense, and came sometimes to be used as a term of reproach for the intellectuals who shut themselves off from the march of events in an ivory tower. The Trahison des Clercs achieved a world-wide popularity and was translated and reprinted over and over again . . . [It] continues to be read; and its invigorating attach on over-involvement deserves not to be forgotten” ( PMM ). Octavo. Original white wrappers, spine and front cover lettered in black and green, edges uncut. Minor dust soiling and a few chips around the extremities, still an excellent copy. ¶ Hazlitt, The Free Man’s Library , p. 40; Printing and the Mind of Man 419. £750 [112783] 14 BENTHAM, Jeremy. A Fragment on Government. Dublin: Printed for J. Sheppard [& 12 others], 1776
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12 BELLERS, John. An Essay towards the Improvement of Physick. London: J. Sowle, 1714 A national health service in 1714 First edition of John Bellers’s powerful essay promoting a healthcare service, far in advance of his own time. “So far as can be ascertained, John Bellers’s plan was the first detailed proposal that had yet been conceived for an all-embracing National Health Service. Britain, he claimed, could not afford to ignore the moral or the economic realities of his plan: ‘Good health was equal to Riches.’ His ‘proposals’ as outlined have, it may be considered, become outdated, but his moral considerations remain pertinent. In this, as in other essays, we see such considerations buttressed by practical economic reasoning. We see, too, his critical, even stringent, observations on uncontrolled self-interest” (Clarke). Much admired by Robert Owen and Karl Marx, who refers to Bellers at least four times in Das Kapital and describes him as a “veritable phenomenon in the history of political economy”, the Quaker John Bellers was a fellow of the Royal Society and a close friend of Hans Sloane, with whom he undoubtedly discussed his proposals. He authored a number of philanthropic works, beginning in 1695 with his Proposals for Raising a Colledge of Industry of All Usefull Trades and Husbandry . Quarto (198 × 158 mm). Recent quarter morocco, spine lettered in gilt, marbled sides. Small rust hole to H4 affecting one letter, upper outer corner of title and final two leaves restored; a crisp, clean copy. ¶ Goldsmiths’ 5169; Hanson 2096; Kress 2896; not in Mattioli or Sraffa. £4,750 [151113]
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15 BENTHAM, Jeremy. Defence of Usury. Dublin: Printed for Messrs D. Williams, Colles, White, Byrne, Lewis, Jones, and Moore, 1788 “A gem of the finest water” in contemporary calf First Irish edition, originally published in London in 1787, here published in Dublin in the year when a debate on the reduction of the rate of interest (from 6 to 5 per cent) was being held in the Irish parliament. The Defence of Usury was written during Bentham’s stay in Russia and takes the form of letters to a friend from “Crichoff, in White Russia”. The work expounds the characteristic Benthamite economic principle that no adult of sound mind acting freely and aware of the circumstances, should be hindered from making any bargain that he sees fit to make; it is thus “an attempt to out-Smith Smith” in hostility to state intervention in economic life (Harrison). “ The Monthly Review spoke of the book as ‘a gem of the finest water’ while Adam Smith pronounced it to be the work of a superior man, adding that he thought the author was in the right. ‘He has given me some hard knocks’, Dr. Smith is reported to have said; ‘but in so handsome a manner that I cannot complain’” (Atkinson, p. 82). Octavo (162 × 100 mm). Contemporary calf, rebacked, brown morocco label. Contemporary bookplate of the Earl of Portarlington to front pastedown, ownership signature of economist R. H. Tawney to initial binder’s blank. Slight rubbing and wear at tips, minor worming at foot of terminal few leaves not affecting text. A very good copy. ¶ Chuo D4.2; Everett, p. 541; Goldsmiths’ 13615; Muirhead, p. 12. Charles Atkinson, Jeremy Bentham: His Life and Work , Methuen & Co., 1905; Ross Harrison, “Jeremy Bentham”, The New Palgrave I , Macmillan, 2018, p. 228. £1,750 [93476]
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Bentham’s first work of any importance First Dublin edition, textually identical to the first London edition of the same year apart from the imprint, of “Bentham’s first work of any importance” (Atkinson, p. 35). The work is in the form of a commentary on Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England , and constitutes Bentham’s most single-minded criticism of the social contract theory, which had characterized English political theory since Locke. Instead of the idea of the social contract, which fiction, Bentham says, has been little needed by those practising just rebellion, he urges the “Principle of Utility” as the sole basis for assessing justice and policy. There are four additional works bound into the volume before Bentham’s work: Halifax, Samuel. An Analysis of the Roman Civil Law . . . 2nd edition, Cambridge: J. Archdeacon, 1775. ESTC T139707. Hargrave, Francis. An Argument in the Case of James Sommersett a Negro . . . 2nd edition, London: for the author, 1775. ESTC T146270. A Barrister. Lord Mansfield’s Speech . . . in the Cause of Campbell against Hall , a new edition, London: G. Kearsley, 1775. ESTC N10870. Borthwick, W. An Inqury into the Origin and Limitations of the Feudal Dignities of Scotland, Edinburgh: William Gordon, 1775. ESTC T37267. Octavo (202 × 122 mm). Bound last in a pamphlet volume of contemporary tan calf, red morocco label, green silk bookmarker. Joints rubbed and cracking at head but perfectly sound, some light wear to extremities; title page with two vertical flaws skinning the paper with the loss of a few characters, sense fully recoverable; a very good copy. ¶ Chuo F1.2; ESTC N3305; Everett, p. 535; Goldsmiths’ 11504; Muirhead, p. 8. Charles Atkinson, Jeremy Bentham: His Life and Work , Methuen & Co., 1905. £5,750 [148887]
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16 BENTHAM, Jeremy. Théorie des peines et des récompenses. London: Vogel and Schulze, and B. Dulau and Co., 1811 Bentham promotes his ideas on the continent First edition of Bentham’s French work on crime and punishment, an attempt to promote his ideas on the continent. The work was edited, arranged and translated by his Swiss collaborator Étienne Dumont, from two sets of manuscripts by Bentham, one in English, the other in Bentham’s own French. The work was not published in English until 1825. “Samuel Bentham, Jeremy’s brother, had long been urging Bentham to translate, or get translated into French, his writings on legislation, in order that his name and views might be better known on the Continent; but Bentham could not afford to employ a good translator and was reluctant to complete the task himself. Dumont’s arrival on the scene, therefore, and his willingness to become a disciple of Bentham were heaven-sent . . . Bentham has humorously told us ‘that the plan was that Dumont should take my half-finished manuscripts as he found them, half English, half English-French and make what he could of them in Genevan-French without giving me any further trouble about the matter. Instead of that, the lazy rogue comes to me with everything that he writes, and teazes me to fill up every gap he has observed.’ [x. 313.] Bowring says that Dumont scarcely ever failed to make Bentham attractive by the graces of his own style and by an infusion of commonplaces, of everyday knowledge and of familiar illustrations. Dumont himself wrote to Bentham: ‘You are too metaphysical, you write for too small a class. I must be more diffuse – more explanatory.’ However, as a result of the delays consequent on the French Revolution and Dumont’s own laziness, it was 1802 before
the Traités de Législation Civile et Pénale was published in Paris in three volumes, and 1811 when Théorie des Peines et des Récompenses followed in two volumes” (Muirhead). 2 volumes, octavo (211 × 125 mm). Contemporary quarter calf, spines decorated and lettered gilt, marbled sides. Library shelfmark in blue ink to front free endpapers. Spines lightly faded, light wear to spine ends and corners. A very good copy. ¶ Chuo T4.1; Everett, p. 531; Goldsmiths’ 20380; Muirhead, p. 17. £1,750 [98719] 17 BENTHAM, Jeremy. Constitutional Code; for the Use of all Nations and all Governments professing Liberal Opinions. Vol. I [all published.] London: Printed for the Author, and published by Robert Heward, 1830 Establishing Bentham “as a major theorist of constitutional democracy” First edition, all published, of Bentham’s Constitutional Code , the only edition published in his lifetime. “The massive, unfinished Constitutional Code , the major work of his final decade, established Bentham as a major theorist of constitutional democracy” (Rosen & Burns, p. xliv). He drafted the Code , aptly subtitled “For the use of All Nations and All Governments professing Liberal Opinions”, after receiving a concrete invitation to do so from the Portuguese Cortes, and hoped to see it adopted in Portugal, Greece, and several Latin American countries. “The publication of the first volume of the Code . . . was a relatively small affair. According to some financial accounts Bentham received from Robert Heward, the publisher, fifty copies of the Code were boarded and sewn in 1830 with three copies reported sold in 1830 and ten in 1831” (ibid., p. xlii).
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underlined passages – likely Ryan’s work – draw attention to Bernay’s definition of “modern propaganda” and to its potential for positive and negative use: “whether, in any instance, propaganda is good or bad depends upon the merit of the cause urged, and the correctness of the information published” (p. 20). Octavo. Original black cloth, spine and front cover lettered in gilt. Bookseller’s ticket to rear pastedown, ownership stamps of Louis A. Ryan to title page and lower margin of p. 158, occasional underlining to the text. Extremities lightly rubbed, spine ends bruised, otherwise a very good copy. ¶ Noam Chomsky, “What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream”, Z Magazine , 1997. £3,500 [143470] 19 BEVERIDGE, William. Social Insurance and Allied Services. London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1942 The Beveridge Report First edition of the Beveridge Report, the document widely recognized as laying the foundations of the modern British welfare state. Commissioned by Churchill during the Second World War to evaluate the current system of social security, the report aroused great interest across the political spectrum, and Beveridge’s proposals were adopted and maintained by successive post-war governments, both Labour and Conservative. Octavo. Wire-stitched gatherings as issued, preserved in a melanex folder. Front wrapper a little creased and dust-soiled, staples a little rusty; a very good copy. ¶ Command number 6404. £225 [148789]
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Octavo. Original fine grain cloth, printed paper label, uncut and partly unopened. With 2 large folding tables, the first, “Constitutional Code”, bound in after p. xvi rather than facing p. iii as Chuo states. Spine ends and corners lightly rubbed, a couple of tiny chips to fore edges, overall a very good copy. ¶ Chuo C5.1. F. Rosen & J. H. Burns (eds.), Constitutional Code , Clarendon Press, 1983. £1,750 [114170] 18 BERNAYS, Edward L. Propaganda. New York: Horace Liveright, 1928 “The main manual of the public relations industry” (Chomsky) First edition, first printing, of this seminal early study of the “benign” uses of propaganda and its place as an essential tool of democracy by Freud’s nephew, “the father of public relations”; this copy from the library of Louis A. Ryan, a writer on propaganda. Noam Chomsky argues that Propaganda is “the main manual of the public relations industry. Bernays is kind of the guru. He was an authentic Roosevelt/Kennedy liberal . . . he became a leading figure of the industry, and his book was the real manual”. Louis A. Ryan’s article, “Propaganda of Organized Economic Groups” ( The American Catholic Sociological Review , 1945) discussed the impact of new technology on the spread of propaganda and its particular effect on property. The
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20 BILLS OF MORTALITY; GREAT PLAGUE OF LONDON – COMPANY OF PARISH CLERKS OF LONDON. London’s Dreadful Visitation: Or, A collection of all the bills of mortality for this present year. London: printed and are to be sold by E. Cotes, 1665 The plague of 1665 First edition, the rarer “20th of December” issue, complete with the folding table. This weekly register of deaths and burials for the year 1665 provides a “valuable and vivid record” of the great plague of London (Norman). The summary bill records that of the 97,306 persons buried in the parishes of London at this time, 68,596 (roughly 70%) died of the plague. The book is also notable for opening with a most striking woodcut-decorated title page. Occasioned by a contemporary outbreak of plague, England’s bills of mortality were instituted in 1592. The responsibility of the Parish Clerks’ Company, this new body of literature provided the material for John Graunt’s Natural and political observations . . . made upon the bills of mortality (1662), now regarded as the foundation of medical statistics, which had gone through two editions (with a third forthcoming) at the time of the publication of London’s Dreadful Visitation . In 1665 the printer
for the Parish Clerks’ Company was Ellen (variants: Ellinor, Eleanor) Cotes (active 1652–1670), the widow and executor of Richard Cotes, official printer to the City of London. The two issues are distinguished by a date variation on the title page; one, as in the present copy, reads “beginning the 20th. of December”, while the other reads “beginning the 27th. of December”. Though the folding table is unquestionably called for (it is mentioned on the title page), Goldsmiths’ also lists it as a separate broadside (Goldsmiths’ 1759 and 1760, the latter a variant with a mourning border). Although not ostensibly a scarce title, when copies of London’s Dreadful Visitation surface they are almost always in poor condition, torn, cropped or defective, and the folding table is often missing. In recent times, only the Richard Green- Wellcome Library copy (27th), which made $25,000 at Christie’s New York in 2008, was remarked to be in particularly good condition. Bound up with the present work are two scarce related broadsides and another 17th-century work, as follows: I: A general bill of all the christenings and burials, from the 19 December, 1665 to the 18 of December, 1666. According to the report made to the Kings most excellent Majesty: by the company of parish-clerks of London. [London: 1666]. Broadside (333 × 202 mm), folded to fit into the volume and bound between C3 and C4 of the first item above. It is not part of the collation of that work, is not called for, and is clearly a separate broadside printed a year later than the book. It is very similar in typography to the ‘General Bill’, mentioned above, and uses the same woodcuts.
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First edition of this counterblast to Bernard Mandeville, rejecting Mandeville’s provocative idea that private vice leads to public good, and his proposal for legal prostitution. Blewitt’s treatise is firstly against the Fable of the Bees , in which Mandeville argued private greed and vice benefit the public as a whole. The Fable was first published in book-form in 1714 but had a resurgence in the mid-1720s with enlarged second, third, and fourth editions published in 1723, 1724 and 1725 respectively. Secondly Blewitt’s book counters the even more controversial A Modest Defence of Publick Stews , generally attributed to Mandeville, which was published in 1724 (with a second edition in 1725), and defended the establishment of state-run, destigmatized brothels. The book was part of a larger corpus of anti-Mandeville literature published in the 1720s, which in itself is proof Mandeville’s ideas were having a wide influence, but this has been declared to be “probably the ablest and most comprehensive attack on Mandeville’s writings by one of his contemporaries” (Primer, p. 194). Blewitt’s “intention was to expose Mandeville’s writings as generally immoral and atheistic. Mandeville’s pages, he finds, are full of faulty reasoning with many non sequiturs, misquotations, misinformation, and unacknowledged borrowing from other authors, most notably Pierre Bayle. Blewitt’s critical method typically involves repeating or paraphrasing a passage in the Fable – about Vanini, say, or sir Paul Rycaut, or the stews – and then delivering a detailed rebuttal that concludes with what he hoped would be regarded as withering sarcasm or devastating satire” (Primer, p. 112). Mandeville did have supporters however – the following year a riposte to Blewitt’s treatise entitled “The True Meaning of The Fable of the Bees” appeared, arguing that Blewitt missed the point, and perhaps he did, taking Mandeville too literally, and falling for his deliberately provocative rhetoric. Octavo (192 × 119 mm). Contemporary speckled calf, red morocco label to spine. Contemporary notation of author on the title page. Very light rubbing at extremities with tiny chip at head, tear to pp. 23/24 repaired, minor chips at a couple of page extremities, contents otherwise clean and crisp. A very good copy. ¶ ESTC T77709. Irwin Primer, Prostitution and its Discontents in Early Georgian England , Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. £975 [134421]
Not in Wing (but see G491B–494G for a nearly complete annual series of a bill of this title from 1679–1693). Goldsmiths’ has three of these; 1682, 1683, 1684. Our copy therefore appears to be possibly the first and certainly the earliest recorded in an annual series of broadsides that continued into the 18th century. II: Londons [sic] Lord Have Mercy Upon Us. A true relation of seven modern plagues, or visitations in London, with the number of those that were buried of all diseases; viz. The first in the year of the Queen Elizabeth, Anno 1592. The second in the year 1603 the third in (that never to be forgotten year) 1625. The fourth in Anno 1630. The fift in the year 1636. The sixt in the year 1637. and 1638. The seventh this present year, 1665. London, Francis Coles, Thomas Vere, and John Wright, [1665]. Broadside (434 × 325 mm), folded; drop-head title; text partly in seven columns. The main text is a poem in two columns under a large central woodcut with London in the background showing death with hourglass and arrow and coffins being drawn by horse and cart. With black memento mori border showing sculls, skeletons and spades. A magnificent illustrated woodcut, folded to fit into the quarto volume, in very fine condition. The text prints the mortality statistics for the years mentioned in the title i.e. 1593, 1603, 1625, 1630, 1636, 1637, 1638, 1665. The figures stop at 27 June 1664 though the weekly dates continue in a column down to 5 September without any figures against them. This suggests that the broadside was printed between 27 June and 4 July. Two short columns contain specific remedies to ward off the plague; for example “A Possett to remove the Plague from the Heart.” In the central part of the broadside, surrounded by the mortality statistics is the large woodcut and a poem of 66 lines. Wing L2937 L, LGH, LU, HH. There are three other issues [London, 1665?] (L only); [London], 1665 (MIU only) and Edinburgh, Society of Stationers, 1665 (EN only). Goldsmiths’ 1788; not in Kress. III: [DRAKE, Roger.] Sacred Chronologie, drawn by Scripture evidence along that vast body of time, (containing the space of almost four thousand years) From the creation of the world, to the passion of our blessed saviour. By the help of which alone, sundry difficult places of scripture are unfolded: and the meanest capacity may improve that holy record with abundance of delight and profit: being enabled thereby to refer each several Historie and material passage therein contained to its proper time and date. By R.D. M.D. London, printed by James and Joseph Moxon, for Stephen Bowtell, at the Sign of the Bible in Popes-head-Alley, 1648. Quarto, pp. [44], [A2], B–T4, V2. Part numbered, part foliated: last page numbered ‘74’. A fine, wide-margined copy. ESTC R206239. Small quarto (222 × 172 mm). Bound with 3 other items (see above) in late 18th-century continental half parchment binding with marbled boards, labelled “Pot Pourri” and numbered in black “2”. Folding table at rear, titled “A general Bill for this present year ending the 19th of December 1665 . . . ”. Title page text set within a thick black woodcut border decorated with memento mori motifs, including a skull-and- crossbones crowned with a winged hourglass under a banner lettered “Memento mori”, plus bones, picks and spades, and full skeletons, and three coats of arms above the imprint; woodcut headpieces, initials; arms of the Parish Clerk’s Company running throughout. Spine ends lightly rubbed, front joint largely cracked but board still holding firmly; blank upper margin of title a little creased, very occasional light spotting or rust marks; an excellent copy, with several uncut edges. ¶ Garrison- Morton 5119 (27th issue); Goldsmiths’ 1761 (27th); Kress 1160 (27th); Norman 1386 (27th); Wing G–1598A (issue not differentiated). £37,500 [148683] 21 BLEWITT, George. An Enquiry Whether A general Practice of Virtue tends to the Wealth or Poverty, Benefit or Disadvantage of a People? London: Printed for R. Wilkin, 1725
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output they helped to produce” (Garrison). Mises described the work as “the most eminent contribution to modern economic theory”, and Hazlitt called the second part “one of the most brilliant and original contributions – if not the most brilliant and original – ever made to the theory of capital and interest”. Both parts are scarce, and particularly so in a uniform contemporary binding. 2 volumes, octavo (210 × 132 mm). Contemporary purple half cloth by Rud. Ortmayer of Munich (ticket to front pastedown of vol. II), spines lettered in gilt, marbled sides and edges. Housed in a custom brown cloth box. Complete with errata leaf in vol. I and advertisement leaf in vol. II. Joints and extremities expertly repaired to vol. I, the front joint with minor superficial splits. Light rubbing to bindings. Minor chip to front free endpaper of vol. I, a couple of short closed tears to half-title of same, a few other sporadic short closed tears and light browning to contents (as usual), contents without marking. A very good copy. ¶ Batson, p. 22; Menger, column 128; not in Einaudi. Roger W. Garrison, “Biography of Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk”, Mises Institute , available online. £15,000 [148852] 23 BOOTH, Charles – SMITH, Sir Hubert Llewellyn (ed.) The New Survey of London Life & Labour. London: P. S. King & Son Ltd, 1930–35 Booth revised, a generation on First edition, a major re-evaluation by the London School of Economics of Charles Booth’s Life and Labour of the People in London , a generation on from its publication. Booth’s (1840–1916) study, a key resource for the social and economic history of late Victorian London, was based on findings collected between 1886 and 1902, with editions published in 1889–91, 1892–97, and 1902–03. The New Survey was undertaken by Sir Hubert Llewellyn Smith (1864–1945), one of Booth’s earliest assistants, and was financed by the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Trust and by donations raised by William Beveridge from London organizations. Smith took Booth’s overview of the London life of the 1890s as the standard of comparison, to analyze social changes over the last few decades. The study shows an improvement in the condition of the workers – around a third increase in purchasing power – but also still highlights ongoing problems of slum life, unemployment, and poverty. It offers perhaps the most detailed study of the lives of everyday Londoners in the inter-war period. It is hard to find sets all from the same source as here, this coming from the Manchester Guardian Library with their stamps to title page rectos and versos (and
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22 BÖHM-BAWERK, Eugen von. Kapital und Kapitalzins. Erste Abteilung. Geschichte und Kritik der Kapitalzins- Theorieen [Zweite Abtheilung. Positive Theorie des Kapitales]. Innsbruck: Verlag der Wagner’schen Universitäts- Buchhandlung, 1884–89 Presentation copy to fellow German economist First editions of both parts, presentation copy to his fellow German economist Lujo Brentano, inscribed in the author’s hand on the half-title verso of the second volume: “Herrn Prof. Dr. Lujo Brentano in aufrichtiger Hochschätzung überreicht vom Verfasser” (“Prof. Dr. Lujo Bretano with sincere esteem presented by the author”). Associated with the historical school of economics, Lujo Brentano (1844–1931) served as professor of economics at the universities of Breslau, Strasbourg, Vienna, Leipzig, and Munich. His study of English trade unionism made the argument that trade unions were the successors of the medieval guilds, a thesis of lasting influence, and he defended trade unions and opposed German militarism until his death. Kapital und Kapitalzins , Böhm-Bawerk’s magnum opus, is “an exhaustive survey of the alternative treatments of the phenomenon of interest: use theories, productivity theories, abstinence theories, and many more. Most significant in this early work is his devastating critique of the exploitation theory, as embraced by Karl Marx and his forerunners: Capitalists do not exploit workers; they accommodate workers – by providing them with income well in advance of the revenue from the
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