The uncommon first edition of Alfred Marshall’s magnum opus. ‘It was one of the most influential treatises of its era and was for many years the Bible of British economics, introducing many still familiar concepts. The Cambridge School rose to great eminence in the 1920s and 1930s. A.C. Pigou and J.M. Keynes, the most important figures in this development, were among Marshall’s pupils’ (New Palgrave). Keynes himself described the publication of Marshall’s Principles as one of the salient events from which the ‘modern age of British economics’ is to be dated (Economic Journal, 1940).
Schumpeter wrote that ‘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 the great achievement there is a still greater message. More than any other economist – with the exception, perhaps, of Pareto – Marshall pointed beyond himself. Naturally his work is out of date. But there is in it a living spring that prevents it from becoming stale’ (History of Economic Analysis, pp. 834, 840).
The book is an enormity, running to over 750 pages with a heavy text block that places significant strain on the binding. As such, unrestored copies in the original cloth are decidedly uncommon and examples of the first edition are usually encountered with their spines rebacked or indeed rebound entirely. The first edition also presents itself as ‘Vol. 1’. Marshall maintained for twenty years that this would be followed by a companion volume covering foreign trade, money, trade fluctuations, taxation, collectivism and more, but none was ever published. Instead, the text evolved through eight revised and expanded editions published during Marshall’s lifetime, the final edition of 1920 being most commonly cited today.
