An Essay on the Principle of Population; with an Inquiry into our Prospects Respecting the Future Removal or Mitigation of the Evils which it Occasions. A New Edition, very much Enlarged.

MALTHUS, Thomas Robert.

Published by London: printed for J. Johnson, by T. Bensley, 1803

About this Item

The Great Quarto edition, notionally the second edition following the first of 1798, but so substantially enlarged, rewritten, and re-titled as to be effectively a new book. The Essay was one of the most influential works in the history of economic thought, arguing the link between food supply and population size and the inevitability of famine and suffering once population exceeded its limits. "For today's readers, living in a post-Malthus era, the world's population problems are well known and serious, but no longer sensational. It is difficult therefore to appreciate the radical and controversial impact made by the Essay at the time of publication. It challenged the conventional notion that population growth is an unmixed blessing. It discussed prostitution, contraception, and other sexual matters. And it gave vivid descriptions of the horrendous consequences of overpopulation and of the brutal means by which populations are checked" (ODNB). In the second edition, Malthus "made clear what was only implicit in the first, that prudential restraint should, if humanly possible, be 'moral restraint' - that is, delayed marriage accompanied by strictly moral pre-marital behaviour, although he admitted that moral restraint would not be easy and that there would be occasional failures. Whereas in the first edition he had said that all the checks to population would involve either misery or vice, in the second edition he attempted to lighten this 'melancholy hue' and 'to soften some of the harshest conclusions of the first essay' by arguing that moral restraint, if supported by an education emphasizing the immorality of bringing children into the world without the means of supporting them, would tend to increase rather than diminish individual happiness" (ODNB). Einaudi 3668; Goldsmiths' 18640; Kress B.4701. Quarto (269 x 205 mm), pp. viii, [4], 610. Contemporary tree calf, rebacked and recornered with original spine laid down, spine gilt in compartments with black morocco label. Twentieth-century bookplate of Virginia bibliophile and historian Christopher Clark Geest. Scattered light foxing, else a very good copy.

Seller Inventory # 182784

Bibliographic Details

• Title: An Essay on the Principle of Population; with an Inquiry into our Prospects Respecting the Future Removal or Mitigation of the Evils which it Occasions. A New Edition, very much Enlarged.
• Publisher: London: printed for J. Johnson, by T. Bensley, 1803
• Edition: 1st Edition