First edition. 8vo. 358, [2] pp. Original pink cloth, spine lettered in blue, dust jacket (neat bookplate of ‘John Watson’ to front pastedown, a few instances of light pencilled underling; jacket price clipped, spine panel faded, notwithstanding an excellent, notably bright copy). London, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1937.
A major study of the classical political economist Nassau William Senior by the historian of economic thought Marian Bowley (1911-2002), daughter of the LSE economist and statistician Arthur Lyon Bowley, ‘which still remains the standard work on that much misunderstood member of the classical school. Her book is more than just a study of Senior, it is really an overview of the whole classical system, both its economic theory and policy stance, woven into a study of Senior. One of her major points was to question the hegemony of classical value theory and argue rather that there were two distinct strands: the labour theory propagated by the Ricardians and a subjective approach espoused by people such as Lauderdale and Senior’ (New Palgrave).
