Maggs Bros.

A lovely copy of this self-described ‘fourth edition’ of the ‘first and greatest classic of modern economic thought’ (PMM), in fact a Dublin counterfeit edition preceding the official fourth edition published in London in three octavo volumes in the following year. The text was reproduced directly from the third edition of 1784, and this was the first octavo edition to appear in only two volumes.

‘After Strahan and Cadell published the third edition of Wealth of Nations in three octavo volumes in 1784, at a price not much different from that of the Dublin three volume octavo edition of 1776, ten Dublin booksellers responded in 1785 with a cheaper ‘fourth edition’ in just two octavo volumes. They achieved their goal by placing more than forty lines and well over four hundred words on each page, while closely copying the third London edition in content (including the style of designating the author on the title page)’ (Tribe, A Critical Bibliography of Adam Smith, p. 24-5).

Originally published in 1776, ‘The Wealth of Nations had no rival in scope or depth when published and is still one of the few works in its field to have achieved classic status, meaning simply that it has sustained yet survived repeated reading, critical and adulatory, long after the circumstances which prompted it have become the object of historical enquiry’ (ODNB).

Tribe, 29.