AN ENQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF THE WEALTH OF NATIONS

Fourth Edition: I. viii (including advertisements to the third and fourth editions) 499, (i errata) II. vii, 518, (v Appendix), (i errata) III. v, (i errata), 465, (xlix index) pages, full contemporary calf with red title labels on the spines, bound as tight backs, front hinge split but holding firmly on the ties, leather is chipped and the top of the spines, occasional light foxing, bookplate on the front pastedown endpaper of volume I, and the name of a later owner in ink on the front free endpapers of all three volumes, overall a very good copy.

Carter (John) & Muir (Percy H.) Printing and the Mind of Man, London 1967, pages133/4, 'The history of economic theory up to the end of the nineteenth century consists of two parts: the mercantilist phase which was based not so much on a doctrine as on a system of practice which grew out of social conditions; and the second which saw the development of the theory that the individual had the right to be unimpeded in the exercise of economic activity. While it cannot be said the Smith invented the latter theory....his work is the first major expression of it. He begins with the thought that labour is the source from which a nation derives what is necessary to it. The improvement of the division of labour is the measure of productivity and in it lies the human propensity to barter and exchange: 'Labour is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities...it is the real price; money is their nominal price only'....The Wealth of Nations ends with a history of economic development, a definitive onslaught on the mercantile system, and some prophetic speculations of the limits of economic control.'...The Wealth of Nations is not a system, but as a provisional analysis it is completely convincing. The certainty of its criticism and its grasp of human nature has made it the first and greatest classic of modern economic thought.'

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Donald Winch (https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/25767) 'The Wealth of Nations had no rival in scope or depth when published and is still one of the few works in its field to have achieved classic status, meaning simply that it has sustained yet survived repeated reading, critical and adulatory, long after the circumstances which prompted it have become the object of historical enquiry'.

This fourth edition contains an Advertisement to the Third Edition where Smith explains 'I have made several additions, particularly the chapter on Drawbacks, and to that upon Bounties, likewise a new chapter entitled, The Conclusion of the Mercantile System; and a new article to the chapter upon the expenses of the sovereign.' Also an Advertisement to the Fourth Edition in which Smith explains himself 'at liberty to acknowledge my very great obligations to Mr. Henry Hop of Amsterdam. To that gentleman I owe the most distinct, as well as liberal information, concerning a very interesting and important subject, the Bank of Amsterdam'.

'Most modern editions are copied from the fourth edition'. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, edited with an Introduction, Notes, Marginal Summary and an Enlarged Index by Edwin Cannan (London: Methuen, 1904). Vol. 1.