On the Probable Fall in the Value of Gold: The commercial and social consequences which may ensue, and the measures which it invites. Translated from the French, with preface, by Richard Cobden.

CHEVALIER, Michel.

Published by New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1859

About this Item

First US edition, the first in English, of this study of currency, gold production, and the consequences of a fall in the value of gold. This copy includes a loosely inserted manuscript letter by the translator from 1847, written when travelling in Europe with his wife Kate. Michel Chevalier (1806-1879) began his career as an engineer, but he combined his technical knowledge with free-market liberalism and Saint-Simonian economics. He later served as a deputy and a senator in the National Assembly. In 1859, Chevalier and Richard Cobden (1804-1865) were busy negotiating the Cobden-Chevalier Treaty, a landmark free trade agreement between Britain and France. The earliest discussions between the two men took place in 1856, nine years after Cobden wrote this letter. In it, he notes his intention to travel from Rome to Naples and requests that his (unidentified) correspondent retain his letters for the time being. The left margin of the letter displays residue from when it was tipped in to another volume. The Probable Fall was published in French in the Revue des deux Mondes in 1857. The first British edition was also published in 1859, in Manchester. See Einaudi 1058. Octavo. Four-page publisher's catalogue at rear. Original brown cloth, spine lettered, dated, ruled, and decorated in gilt, boards ruled and with central ornament blocked in blind, light yellow coated endpapers. Light sunning and rubbing to spine and extremities, minor browning to outer leaves: a very good copy.

Seller Inventory # 160731

Bibliographic Details

• Title: On the Probable Fall in the Value of Gold: The commercial and social consequences which may ensue, and the measures which it invites. Translated from the French, with preface, by Richard Cobden.
• Publisher: New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1859
• Edition: 1st Edition