San Francisco: Wm. M. Hinton & Co., 1879. First edition. Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt and decoratively stamped in blind, pale pink endpapers. With the rare advertisement leaf tipped in at rear. Housed in a later blue cloth slipcase.

Previous ownership stamp of San Franciscan lawyer Jas. A. Waymire to front pastedown. Spine faded and a little rolled, extremities lightly rubbed and bumped, faint scuffing to rear board, recased, hinges partly exposed at gutter of pp. 208-9 and 304-5, the lower corners of sig. 27.7-8 unopened, some foxing and marks to endmatter, else a very good copy, the contents bright and clean.

First edition, first issue, the limited "Author's edition", one of 200 copies privately printed, this copy in a variant binding of blue cloth and with the scarce advertisement leaf asking that no reviews be printed, which we have never handled before. Unable to sell his manuscript, George turned to his friend, the printer William Hinton, who published this limited author's edition. This limited issue is often seen in purple cloth; variations to the spine lettering have also been noted (this copy without "Author's Edition" at the foot of the spine). Eventually Appleton in New York published the first trade edition from Hinton's plates in 1880.

"The most influential of American works on economics, this book gave its author an international reputation as prophet and reformer. He proposed to abolish poverty and secure fair distribution of the rewards of labor by appropriating all economic rent by taxation, and abolishing all taxation except upon land values. Today the slogan of the single tax still unites the followers of Henry George" (Grolier). (Item #2016)