MALTHUS (Thomas Robert).
An Essay on the Principle of Population; or, A View of the Past and Present Effects on Human Happiness; With an Inquiry into our Prospects Respecting the Future Removal or Mitigation of the Evils which it occasions.
An attractive copy of the fourth edition of this canonical text of classical economics and reference point for all serious discussion of population to this day, being a reprint of the third edition of 1806 with a new Appendix written in response to earlier objections to the author’s conclusions.
Originally published anonymously in 1798, followed by the extensively revised “Great Quarto” edition of 1803 and the third edition presented here, being the first to appear in two octavo volumes, both so substantially enlarged, rewritten, and re-titled as to be entirely new works. Malthus’s ‘Essay was originally the product of a discussion with his father on the perfectibility of society. Malthus senior was a supporter of the utopian views of Godwin and others, but recognised the force of his son’s refutation of these views, and urged him to publish. Thus, the first edition was essentially a fighting tract, but later editions were considerably altered and grew bulkier as Malthus defended his views against a host of critics. The Malthusian theory of population came at the right time to harden the existing feeling against the Poor Laws and Malthus was a leading spirit behind the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834’ (Printing and the Mind of Man).