Skip to content

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. In Three Volumes. The Fourth Edition.

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. In Three Volumes. The Fourth Edition.

Click for full-size.

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. In Three Volumes. The Fourth Edition.

by SMITH,Adam

  • Used
  • very good
Condition
Very Good
Seller
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Norwich, Norfolk, United Kingdom
3 Copies Available from This Seller
(You can add more at checkout.)
Item Price
A$9,701.50
Or just A$9,662.31 with a
Bibliophiles Club Membership
FREE Shipping to USA Standard delivery: 14 to 21 days
More Shipping Options

Payment Methods Accepted

  • Visa
  • Mastercard
  • American Express
  • Discover
  • PayPal

About This Item

3 volumes, octavo, contemporary half calf and marbled boards, contemporary red morocco labels lettered gilt with volume numbers in gilt, head and tails worn, leaf edges entirely uncut, pp.viii + 499 + (1) errata; vi + 518 + (5) appendix + (1) errata; v + (1) errata + 465 + (1) blank + (50) index, in vol.III title page and index leaves unopened, engraved armorial bookplate in all volumes of Talbot of Gonville's Hall in Wymondham Co.Norfolk MDLXXXIV, in volumes II and III in ink on initial blank B.C.Hingham June 87, contemporary binders note in ink on front blank endpaper of volume I 3 V. 0.18.0 in hf bind., and at the foot of the final blank leaf Joh.Slapp Cher., a charming copy.

PMM 221 (1st edition). Goldsmith 13148. Kress B1129. Vanderblue, p.3. See Mossner, Correspondence of Adam Smith, 1987, letter no.256 to Andrew Strahan

Fourth edition published on November 6th 1786. There are a few trifling alterations from the 3rd edition.. In the 'Advertisement' leaf in volume I to this edition Adam Smith writes 'In this fourth edition I have made no alterations of any kind. I now, however, find myself at liberty to acknowledge my very great obligations to 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; of which no printed account had ever appeared to me satisfactory, or even intelligible...'

Adam Smith wrote to his publisher Andrew Strahan in February 1786 'I beg you will employ one of your best compositors in printing the new edition of my book. I must, likewise beg that a compleat copy be sent to me before it is published, that I may revise and correct it. You may depend upon my not detaining you above a week...'

Reviews

(Log in or Create an Account first!)

You’re rating the book as a work, not the seller or the specific copy you purchased!

Details

Bookseller
Hamish Riley-Smith Rare Books GB (GB)
Bookseller's Inventory #
biblio60
Title
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. In Three Volumes. The Fourth Edition.
Author
SMITH,Adam
Book Condition
Used - Very Good
Quantity Available
3
Publisher
A.Strahan and T.Cadell
Place of Publication
London
Date Published
1786
Weight
0.00 lbs
Note
May be a multi-volume set and require additional postage.

Terms of Sale

Hamish Riley-Smith Rare Books

30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.

About the Seller

Hamish Riley-Smith Rare Books

Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Biblio member since 2014
Norwich, Norfolk

About Hamish Riley-Smith Rare Books

Obituary: Book dealer Hamish Riley-Smith (1941-2020), as published in The Antique Trade Gazette
Rare book specialist Hamish Riley-Smith, who died on August 10, did not originally intend to become a dealer.
He went to Trinity College Dublin, where he read economics and met our mother Brigitta (Gita) von Wagner. He planned to work in the family brewing business, John Smith's, and spent seven years learning the craft at Whitbread's. But after all the family interest in John Smith's was sold in 1972, he looked for a new career.
In 1974 he started Hamish Riley-Smith Rare Books. He had no formal training in the book business, other than an acute awareness of business and a degree in economics. He started, in his own words, as a runner, taking one book to another dealer and making a small margin.
Hamish quickly realised this was not for him and started to focus on Arabic and economic books and the social sciences. Through knowledge and research he built up a strong and friendly working relationship with the Japanese, travelling to Japan often. He also traded in Arabia, the US and Europe.
Sacks of catalogues
We can remember how sacks of catalogues would leave the house and go off to museums and institutions across the world, and answers would come back via telex. This was a world before the internet, mobile phones and faxes and computers were only just coming in.
Among his proudest sales were the 14th century Qur'an manuscript of Mameluk Sultan Al Malik Al Nasir Muhammad (pictured here); The Papers of Sir Roy Harrod; The library of Sir John Hicks; The Betjeman Library; typescript/manuscript of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractus Logico Philosophicus; The Felibriges Library of Musée Theodore Aubanel, Avignon; as well as collections of Isaac Newton; John Locke; Thomas Hobbes; Shakespeare; William Petty; Robert Owen and Adam Smith.
He was resolute in his independence and had many friends and colleagues in the book business, but he never did a book fair ("I am not a book fairy") and refused to join any trade associations.
He will be remembered by the family as a loving husband, father and grandfather, and a great source of fun and interest; for Hamish, above all, family came first. His business will continue to be run by his wife Gita and two sons, Damian, director of Paragraph Publishing, and Crispian, director of Crispian Riley-Smith Fine Arts Ltd.

Glossary

Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:

Bookplate
Highly sought after by some collectors, a book plate is an inscribed or decorative device that identifies the owner, or former...
Unopened
A state in which all or some of the pages of a book have not been separated from the adjacent pages, caused by a traditional...
Title Page
A page at the front of a book which may contain the title of the book, any subtitles, the authors, contributors, editors, the...
Leaves
Very generally, "leaves" refers to the pages of a book, as in the common phrase, "loose-leaf pages." A leaf is a single sheet...
Gilt
The decorative application of gold or gold coloring to a portion of a book on the spine, edges of the text block, or an inlay in...
Marbled boards
...
Errata
Errata: aka Errata Slip A piece of paper either laid in to the book correcting errors found in the printed text after being...
Morocco
Morocco is a style of leather book binding that is usually made with goatskin, as it is durable and easy to dye. (see also...
Edges
The collective of the top, fore and bottom edges of the text block of the book, being that part of the edges of the pages of a...
Calf
Calf or calf hide is a common form of leather binding. Calf binding is naturally a light brown but there are ways to treat the...
Octavo
Another of the terms referring to page or book size, octavo refers to a standard printer's sheet folded four times, producing...
New
A new book is a book previously not circulated to a buyer. Although a new book is typically free of any faults or defects, "new"...

This Book’s Categories

tracking-