Glasgow: At the University Press, printed by and for J. & J. Scrymgeour, 1805. Eleventh edition. The first edition to include the "Life of the Author' in volume one. Octavo (220 x 140 mm). [4], iv, lvi, 360; [2], iv, 512, [4, appendix]; [2], 448, [50, index] pp. A Very Good copy. Publisher's blue paper boards. Some chipping to spines and edges. Upper hinge of volume one with expert tissue reinforcement; otherwise, unrestored. Contemporary armorial bookplates (J. Hunter) to upper pastedowns. Offsetting to title-pages from bookplates and some toning to edges. Hole to upper free endpaper of volume one. Bookseller's tickets (W&G Foyle, Charing Cross Road) to lower pastedowns. An appealing set in the original boards.

Published in the same year as the American Declaration of Independence, Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations was a magnum opus that shaped not only the future of a new republic, but that also urged longstanding sovereign governments to reconsider how and when they regulated markets. Arguing that economic growth comes not from government planning "but as the natural outcome of many people pursuing their own self-interest in the confines of an ordered polity," Smith encouraged economists and political policy-makers to leave free markets to their own operations and focus instead on fulfilling the duties of peace keeping, education, and public infrastructure that they owed their citizenry (The Wall Street Journal). This eleventh edition was the first to print the twenty-eight-page biography of Adam Smith in volume one, as well as an analysis of his theories by the economist Germain Garnier (1754 – 1821), who had translated The Wealth of Nations into French.

PMM 21 (for the first edition). Very Good (Item #8312)