Manuscript copy of Quesnay’s masterwork
19 QUESNAY, François. Tableau Economique [contemporary manuscript copy, late 1750s; bound with:] MIRABEAU, Victor Riquetti, Marquis de. Philosophie rurale, ou Économie générale et politique de l’agriculture. Amsterdam: Chez les libraires associés, 1763 £97,500 2 works in one volume, quarto (263 × 199 mm). Contemporary sprinkled calf, triple gilt-rule border to boards, spine decorated gilt in compartments, red and green morocco lettering pieces, marbled endpapers, edges sprinkled in red. Housed in a brown cloth flat back solander box by the Chelsea Bindery. Paper stock of manuscript copy watermarked 1749. Engraved armorial bookplate on front pastedown, crest and name defaced so as to be illegible; from the library of Vincent-Michel Maynon de Farcheville (1716–1805), Intendant of Amiens, general controller of finance and minister of state in 1758, with his gilt device of a sheaf of corn in each spine compartment. Binding presenting handsomely, boards a little stained and scuffed in places, with a few scratches, spine ends and corners expertly repaired; a crisp, clean copy. ¶ Philosophie rurale : Goldsmiths’ 9836; Higgs 2881; INED 3204; Kress 6120.
An exceptional and probably unique pairing of two texts essential to the history of economic thought, in a strictly contemporary binding, combining a very rare contemporary manuscript copy of Quesnay’s Tableau économique with the first edition of Mirabeau’s Philosophie rurale (1763), which includes Quesnay’s fullest explanation of the Tableau économique in print. “A most remarkable analysis of the economic condition of his country” (Palgrave), Quesnay’s Tableau économique is credited as the first precise formulation of interdependent systems in economics and the origin of the theory of the multiplier in economics. It anticipates many modern theories, including Keynes’s multiplier, Walras’s general equilibrium system, Marx’s reproduction schemes, and Sraffa’s price system. The Tableau économique was originally printed as a six-page pamphlet in 1758 in a minute number of copies. The text of the 1759 so-called “third” edition (expanded to XII, 22 pp.), of which just three recorded copies survive, corresponds almost exactly to this manuscript copy, apart from a different placement of the notes. The Tableau économique was first published in book form as the final part of Mirabeau’s L’Ami des Hommes in 1760. Quesnay’s masterful elucidation of his system appears in Mirabeau’s Philosophie rurale (1763), making this volume a particularly pertinent pairing of works. “Quesnay collaborated very substantially in preparing this last major work, contributing the final chapter with further explanations and manipulations of his Tableau économique analysis” ( The New Palgrave ). Schumpeter calls the work “the first of the four text-books of physiocrat orthodoxy” (p. 225) and Higgs “the most complete and magisterial account of the views of the physiocratic school”. Provenance: from the library of collector Pierre Quesnay, sold Rouen, June 1987, subsequently in a private Swiss collection.
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SIXTY FINE ITEMS
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