Principles of Political Economy

A pleasing example in publisher's blind-tooled cloth of the second, revised edition of J.S. Mill's (1806-1873) authoritative treatise on political economy which 'laid the foundations of the "philosophic radicalism" [that] became the gospel of liberal politicians in the mid-nineteenth century' (PMM). Ranked as the 'undisputed bible of economic doctrine' until the publication of Alfred Marshall's Principles in 1890 (Roll).

Although often billed as a work of economic theory, Principles contains some of Mill's clearest statements as a social philosopher and political scientist, and in his preface Mill deliberately sets himself up as the natural successor to Adam Smith, noting in particular the characteristic breadth of his work which 'implies a much wider range of ideas and topics, than are included in political economy, considered as a branch of abstract speculation' (p.iv).

Whilst Mill, like his father James and his associate David Ricardo saw the creation of wealth in classical terms as a product of the scientific combination of land, labour, and capital, he was influenced by the great suffering experienced by ordinary people over the course of the 1840s — a decade characterised by the Irish famine and general food scarcity — to place these laws into a more overtly social context, criticising the 'hard, abstract mode' of others for bringing 'discredit upon political economists' (Letter to Macvey Napier, 9th November 1844).

From the moment of its publication, Mill's Principles was hailed as a classic in the history of political and economic thought, reaching its seventh edition by 1871, and has remained a cornerstone text ever since.

Second edition; 2 vols; 8vo (23 x 15 cm); 4pp ads to rear vol. II, occasional minor spotting, residue from excised labels to front free endpapers of each vol.; publisher's green blind-ruled cloth, paper labels to spine, edges rough-trimmed, paper label to vol. I with slight loss, corners bumped, a little soiled and rubbed, very good; xvi, 611, [1]; xv, [1], 552, 4pp.