Recherches sur la nature et les causes de la richesse des nations

2 volumes 8vo of 2 ll., IV pp., 503 pp., 3 pp., 2 ll., 496 pp.
Contemporary red morocco, gilt fillet on covers, gilt fleurons at angles, decorated smooth spine, tile pieces in green morocco, inner gilt, gilt edges.

196 x 125 mm.

Smith, Adam (1723-1790). Recherches sur la nature et les causes de la richesse des nations, trad. de l’anglais.
Londres et Paris, chez Duplain, 1788.

First French 8vo edition of this major work.

One of the only copies listed on the market preserved in its elegant contemporary morocco binding.

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations is Adam Smith's most famous work. Published in 1776, it is the first modern economics textbook. In it, Smith sets out his analysis of the origins of the recent prosperity of certain countries, such as England and the Netherlands. He develops economic theories on the division of labor, the market, currency, the nature of wealth, the “price of goods in labor,” wages, profits, and the accumulation of capital. He examines different systems of political economy, in particular mercantilism and physiocracy. He also develops the idea of a natural order, the “system of natural liberty,” resulting from individual interest resolving itself into the general interest through free enterprise, free competition, and free trade.

The Wealth of Nations remains one of the most important works in this discipline to this day (for Amartya Sen, “the greatest book ever written on economic life”). It is the founding document of classical economic theory and, according to some, of economic liberalism.

Adam Smith (June 5th, 1723 – July 17th 1790) was a Scottish philosopher and economist of the Enlightenment. He is remembered as the father of modern economics, whose main work, published in 1776, The Wealth of Nations, is one of the founding texts of economic liberalism. A professor of moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow, he devoted ten years of his life to this text, which inspired the great economists who followed, those whom Karl Marx would call the “classics” and who would lay down the main principles of economic liberalism.

Rare early French translation of Adam Smith’s political and economis classic, the « Wealth of Nations ». Translated by Blavet.
The present edition constitutes the third reprint of the second French translation. The second French translation was done by Blavet and is the first translation into French of which the translator and publisher are known.
The reprint of Blavet's version appeared at Yverdon in 1781 in 6 volumes 12mo, and at Paris in the same year in 3 volumes 12mo, and again at London and Paris in 1788 in 2 volumes 8vo [the present edition], and revised and corrected, with Blavet's name as translator, at Paris An, ix (1800-01) in 4 volumes 8vo.

A superb copy, one of the only copies listed preserved in its contemporary morocco, from Marshal Mac Mahon’s library, with his ex-libris.

Marie-Edme-Patrice-Maurice de Mac Mahon, duke of Magenta, son of Maurice-François, Lord of Eguilly, Sivry, and Voudenay, Baron of Sully, Lieutenant General, and son of Pélagie-Edme-Marie Riquet de Caraman, born at the Château de Sully on June 13, 1808, entered the École de Saint-Cyr in 1825; Colonel on April 24, 1845, Brigadier General on June 12, 1848, Major General on July 6, 1852, he was appointed Officer of the Legion of Honor in November 1837 and Commander in July 1849; He was promoted to Grand Officer on August 10, 1853, and Grand Cross on September 22, 1855. Napoleon III appointed him senator on June 24, 1856, and Marshal of France, with the title of Duke of Magenta, on the battlefield of Magenta itself on June 4, 1859. He was ambassador extraordinary to the coronation of the King of Prussia in 1861. Governor General of Algeria on September 1, 1864, he remained in office until the war of 1870; taken prisoner at Sedan, Mac Mahon returned to fight against the Commune and seized Paris on May 28, 1871. He was elected President of the Republic without his knowledge on May 24, 1873; he resigned on January 30^th, 1879 and died in 1893.