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

London: for A. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1786. 3 volumes. An especially early printing, the fourth, only the second of the octavo editions, the last edition with any changes, includes a new preface never before printed, issued only 10 years after the first 2 vol. quarto edition. 8vo, beautiful three-quarter polished calf in fine antique style over marbled paper covered boards, red morocco lettering labels gilt, the spine in compartments separated by gilt bands, gilt central devices in the compartments. viii, 499 + errata; vi, 518, [5] Appendix + errata; v + errata, 465, (47) index + (1) ad pp. A remarkably fine and handsome set, the text blocks completely untrimmed and with the original deckled edges as issued from the printer. Bindings in excellent condition. A BEAUTIFUL SET OF THIS EXTRAORDINARY WORK. Smith's classic work was begun at Toulouse in 1763-64 where he had travelled as guardian of Henry Scott, the young duke of Buccleuch, and in the company of David Hume, historian and fellow professor at Glasgow University. The work took shape over the next ten years and was finally published in 1776. At one point during its composition, Hume wrote that Smith was "cutting himself off entirely from human society." But his labors, however severe his methods, yielded the "first and greatest classic of modern economic thought" (Printing and the Mind of Man).
"[I]t may be said that the WEALTH OF NATIONS certainly operated powerfully through the harmony of its critical side with the tendencies of the half-century which followed its publication to the assertion of personal freedom and 'natural rights.' It discredited the economic policy of the past, and promoted the overthrow of institutions which had come down from earlier times, but were unsuited to modern society. As a theoretic treatment of social economy, and therefore as a guide to social reconstruction and practice in the future, it is provisional, not definitive. But when the study of its subject comes to be systematized on the basis of a general social philosophy more complete and durable than Smith's, no contribution to that final construction will be found so valuable as his" (Britannica).
The fourth edition contains a special ‘advertisement’, first appearing here, in which Smith declares that he is now ‘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’. Eighteenth century editions of Smith’s magnum opus are now becoming very scarce.