230 - Marshall, A.

Marshall, A. Principles of Economics. Vol. I (complete). Second edition. London: Macmillan and Co., 1891. Gr.-8° (22 x 14.5 cm). XXX, [1] leaves, 770 pp. Period midnight blue morocco leather binding with gold-stamped spine label, decorative gold lettering on the spine, gold-stamped cover fillets, and a gold-stamped cover vignette (“Postera Crescam Laude,” University of Melbourne). Batson p. 146. Einaudi 3736. Keynes 33. — A very rare second, revised edition of this classic of economic science. — Second edition, first published the previous year, one of 3,000 copies. This edition differs from the first only in minor details and in its organization. - “Marshall’s great work is the classical achievement of the period—that is, the work that embodies, more perfectly than any other, the classical situation that emerged around 1900 … Behind this great achievement lies an even greater message. More than any other economist—with the exception, perhaps, of Pareto—Marshall looked beyond himself. ... Naturally, his work is outdated. But there is a living spring within it that prevents it from becoming stale” (Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis, 1954, p. 834 ff.). — “The way in which Marshall’s *Principles of Economics* is written is more unusual than the casual reader will notice. It is deliberately unsensational and understated. Its rhetoric is of the simplest, most unadorned order. It flows in a steady, lucid stream, with few passages that halt or confuse the intelligent reader, even if he knows very little about economics. Claims to novelty or originality on the part of the author himself are entirely absent” (J. M. Keynes in the Economic Journal, Vol. 34, 1924, p. 310 ff.). — “There can be no fairer fate for any theory than that it should point the way to a more comprehensive theory, in which it lives on as a special case. (This encompasses Newton’s and Smith’s “chain of being,” thereby linking microeconomics and macroeconomics, leading to a “world formula” and an order of fundamental values)” (Albert Einstein). - A. Marshall (1842–1924) “was one of the most influential economists of his time. He was a proponent of the marginal utility school within neoclassical economics. His main contribution lies in the development of microeconomic partial analysis. The supply-and-demand curve he popularized is still standard in economics. ... In his book *Principles of Economics*, published in 1890 and long considered the leading text in the United Kingdom, he presented many theories of his time for the first time within a coherent framework and developed numerous analytical tools that are now standard in economics" (Wikipedia). - Joints and edges show some wear; an exceptionally beautiful copy in a magnificent premium binding from the University of Melbourne, founded in 1853.