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103 MALTHUS, Thomas Robert. Principles of Political Economy. London: John Murray, 1820 Presentation copy to his friend Sydney Smith First edition, presentation copy, inscribed in Malthus’s hand on the title page “Revd Sydney Smith from the author” (slightly shaved by the binder), and with Smith’s armorial bookplate to the front pastedown and his signature on page 40. The prominent writer and Anglican clergyman Sydney Smith (1771–1845) was a good friend of Malthus for many years. Smith and Malthus had mutual friends in James Mackintosh, Richard Sharp, and the poet Samuel Rogers, and came to a long-standing association: Malthus later stayed with Smith at Combe Florey in 1831 and again the following year, when he used a letter from Smith to scribble some notes for the second edition of the Principles . Smith was known for his wit, and Malthus was no exception, with Smith promulgating the joke that due to his ideas of population, Malthus rejoiced in fatal epidemics and lamented pregnancy (James, p. 436). Smith wrote to Earl Grey on 15 April 1820 in which he noted Malthus had published the present book (Holland, p. 196). Smith took a wry stance on his friend’s work, advising contributors to the Edinburgh Review to avoid the subject of political economy, which Malthus and Ricardo had turned into a ‘metaphysics’ (ibid., p. 244). Despite Smith’s good humoured ribbing of his friend and his work, he was nonetheless deeply moved upon Malthus’s death, writing to Sir Wilmot Horton (15 January 1835) “Poor Malthus! Everybody regrets him; – in science and in conduct equally a philosopher, one of the most practically wise men I ever met, shamefully mistaken and unjustly calumniated, and receiving no mark of favour from a Liberal Government, who ought to have interested themselves in the fortunes of such a virtuous martyr to truth” (ibid., p. 356).
The Principles was Malthus’s broadest treatment of issues in political economy, conceived as a series of tracts rather than a comprehensive and systematic treatise. Malthus published it to establish his own position against that of Ricardo, with whom he had been having an ongoing debate about the nature of labour, demand and profit. “In his ‘Principles of Political Economy’, Malthus was proposing investment in public work and private luxury as a means of increasing effective demand, and hence as a palliative to economic distress. The nation, he thought, must balance the power to produce and the will to consume” ( DSB ). (For Sydney Smith, see item 147.) Octavo (212 × 131 mm). Contemporary red half morocco, rebacked with original spine laid down, smooth spine lettered and tooled in gilt, marbled sides, red cloth hinge supports, brown speckled edges. Minor wear to tips, some light foxing, contents without repair or tears; a very good copy. ¶ Einaudi 3680; Goldsmiths’ 22767; Kress C.577. Lady Holland, A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith , Leopold, 1855; Patricia James, Population Malthus: His Life and Times , Routledge, 2013. £17,500 [148595]
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Peter Harrington
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