Some Leading Principles of Political Economy. Newly Expounded.

CAIRNES, John Elliott.

Published by London: Macmillan and Co., [c.1874]

About this Item

Early printing, from the library of the Irish economist Robert Dennis Collison Black (1922-2008), Professor of Economics at Queen's University Belfast from 1962 to 1985, with his ownership inscription dated 1944 to the front free endpaper verso. Black is best remembered for editing and publishing the Papers and Correspondence of William Stanley Jevons. He studies Cairnes in his book Economic Thought and the Irish Question, published 1960. The book does not have a date on the title page (the first printing has 1874), and despite the London imprint has the notice "Printed in New York, U.S.A" on the title page verso. It was therefore apparently printed from the London plates or stereos; it probably precedes the US edition published by Harper & Brothers also in 1874. Some Leading Principles was the author's last and longest work, a commentary on and critical interpretation of the principal doctrines of the English school of economists. Cairnes (1823-1875), often described as the "last of the classical economists", was a key Irish political economist who developed and critiqued the work of John Stuart Mill. As he writes in the preface, his purpose here is "'to strengthen and add consistency' to the fabric constructed by Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, and Mill; and since in that work he defended the wages-fund doctrine after Mill had abandoned it, and showed himself unsympathetic towards Jevons's new approach to value theory it left a last, and lasting, impression of Cairnes as a very conservative political economist, which was not wholly deserved" (ODNB). Batson, p. 22; Sraffa 632. Octavo. Original brown pebble-grain cloth, spine lettered and ruled in gilt and black, panelling to front cover in black and rear cover in blind, black endpapers. Early 20th-century Dublin bookseller's stamp to front free endpaper verso, a few instances of pencilled marginal marks. Light rubbing at extremities, minor foxing; a very good copy.

Seller Inventory # 159014

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Some Leading Principles of Political Economy. Newly Expounded.
• Publisher: London: Macmillan and Co., [c.1874]