SMITH, Adam (1723-1790). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. London: for W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1778.

2 volumes, 4to (267 x 216 mm). Half-title in vol. II, (no half-title issued for vol. II). (Top marginal corners on title-pages and half-title clipped or torn away and repaired, 4F3 in vol. II reinforced on verso, spotting and very occasional browning.) Modern calf antique retaining old bookplates. Provenance: Gardiner Greene Hubbard (1822-1897), father-in-law to Alexander Graham Bell, whom together founded Bell Telephone Company, and founder of National Geographic Magazine (armorial bookplate); acquired by Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) and has remained in the family's possession at Beinn Bhreagh Hall, Bell's summer estate, since its acquisition.

ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL'S COPY of the second edition, one of only 500 copies and the only other early quarto edition apart from the first. Long considered a straight reprint, the second edition in fact contains "a number of alterations large and small, some providing new information, some correcting matters of fact, some perfecting the idiom, and a large number now documenting references in footnotes" (Todd, "The Text and Apparatus," in vol. I of the 1976 edition of the Wealth of Nations, p.62).

In his Wealth of Nations, Smith "begins with the thought that labour is the source from which a nation derives what is necessary to it. The improvement of the division of labour is the measure of productivity and in it lies the human propensity to barter and exchange... The Wealth of Nations ends with a history of economic development, a definitive onslaught on the mercantile system, and some prophetic speculations on the limits of economic control" (PMM 221). ESTC T95117; Einaudi 5329; Goldsmiths' 11663; Kress B.154; Tribe 15; Vanderblue 3.
Property of the Trustees of Beinn Bhreagh Hall