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102 MALTHUS, Thomas Robert. An Essay on the Principle of Population. London: for J. Johnson, by T. Bensley, 1803 Presentation copy to his travelling companion and close friend Presentation copy of the Great Quarto Edition, inscribed in the author’s autograph at the upper outer corner of the title page: “Wm. Otter. From his friend the Author” (the last two letters cropped by the binder). The Great Quarto Edition was the second edition of the Essay on Population , substantially enlarged, rewritten and re-titled, essentially a new work. Inscribed copies of any of Malthus’s works are rare, and it is hard to conceive of a closer association than the present volume. William Otter (1768–1840), later bishop of Chichester, befriended Malthus as an undergraduate at Jesus College, Cambridge. In 1799, a year after the publication of the first edition of Malthus’s Essay (in a single octavo volume), they travelled to the continent in company with Edward Daniel Clarke and John Marten Cripps. Otter alone accompanied Malthus onwards from Lake Vänern as he gathered supporting evidence for this new version of his Essay in Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Russia, while Otter occupied himself with botanizing (he was later a fellow of the Linnean Society). Malthus kept a diary of his journey, part of which has survived and been published. It shows him busily recording local details of the pressure of population on food supplies, and of the various local customs and institutions by means of which populations were held in check (the other part was lent to Clarke and lost). Otter would naturally have been the chief sounding-board on that journey, as Malthus sought to ground his brilliant but sketchy thesis with the statistical and moral underpinnings necessary to convince the wider audience.
The most significant change in Malthus’s writing was the softening of his harsh conclusion in the first Essay that all checks to population must involve either misery or vice. The Great Quarto Essay proposes that prudential restraint should, if humanly possible, be “moral restraint” – that is, delayed marriage accompanied by strictly moral pre-marital behaviour (although Malthus admitted that moral restraint would not be easy and that there would be occasional failures). It was in this modified form that Malthusian ideas became a standard feature of the social teachings of the Established Church, attracting the interest of leading evangelical intellectuals like Otter, as well as Edward Copleston, Bishop of Llandaff, Richard Whateley, Archbishop of Dublin, and others. Otter remained the leading champion of Malthusian ideas. His memoir of Malthus, prefixed to the second edition of The Principles of Political Economy (1836), sought to create a more receptive climate for Malthus’s works by highlighting his personal qualities, and remains an important source for Malthus’s life. His own writings emphasize the implications of Malthus’s ideas for devising approaches to the problem of pauperism. On a personal level, their association remained close: Otter’s eldest daughter, Sophia, married Malthus’s son, Henry. Quarto (275 × 210 mm). Contemporary sprinkled calf, rebacked, red morocco label to style, lower outer corner of front board substantially repaired, others with minor restoration. Preliminary blank and title creased at upper outer corner (perhaps to preserve presentation inscription), some light foxing throughout, small stain beyond text at lower outer corner from beginning through first few gatherings (slightly chipped for first few leaves), chip at head of D3 not affecting text. A good copy. ¶ Einaudi 3668; Goldsmiths’ 18640; Kress B.4701. £45,000 [148177]
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