An Excellent Copy of a Classic Work in Economics

Stock #: CJM0706           $7500
PJP Catalog 58.230

     EDEN FREDERIC MORTON.
THE STATE OF THE POOR: OR AN HISTORY OF THE LABOURING CLASSES IN ENGLAND. (London: Printed by J. Davis  1797)   279 x 225 mm. (11 x 8 7/8"). With the half title in each volume the errata leaf (in Volume I before the preface) and the extra eight leaves in Volume III (beginning with 5B*).    Three volumes. FIRST EDITION.    Very pleasing recent retrospective smooth calf raised bands russet and brown morocco labels on each spine new (but not disagreeable) endpapers.    Folding table in Volume III.    Title pages and six other leaves with a small oval area either skillfully repaired or covered over with a small patch of old paper to remove or obscure a mark of ownership.    Faintly spotted with foxing here and there a hint of soiling to first few leaves in each volume but A VERY ATTRACTIVE COPY the simple yet pleasing and entirely appropriate binding unworn and the text in really excellent condition the leaves fresh and mostly very clean with only very minor defects.

As DNB says these three volumes published a year before Malthus' "Essay on Population" "form one of the classical works in economical literature and are so rich in valuable facts not to be found elsewhere that they can never pass out of date. Karl Marx has said that Eden is 'the only disciple of Adam Smith during the 18th century that produced any work of importance.'" In a period when social studies were yet to appear in university curricula and the Industrial Revolution was in its infancy this pioneering work virtually created the discipline and methodology of sociology. As the extended title indicates "The State of the Poor" covers the period from the Norman Conquest to the time of publication examining the laboring classes' "domestic economy with respect to diet dress fuel and habitation; and the various plans which from time to time have been proposed and adopted for the relief of the poor: together with parochial reports relative to the administration of work-houses and the houses of industry; the state of Friendly Societies; and other public institutions; in several agricultural commercial and manufacturing districts." There is also a large appendix containing "a comparative and chronological table of the prices of labour of provisions and of other commodities." Taking a stance which is both reasoned and compassionate the author sets out to analyze the condition of the laboring classes and delineate the causes of economic hardships. Eden began his researches during the period when the battles of England with the French Republic had caused a scarcity of grain and a consequent rise in prices that made it difficult for the poor to make ends meet. Sir Frederic Eden (1766-1809) was educated at Oxford and served as the chairman of the Globe Insurance Company. This is the major work which he produced in his brief life.

PMM 249. Lowndes I 712; Graesse II 462; Kress B-3384.