First edition. Small 8vo. xxiv, 457, [3] pp., engraved frontispiece map. Original quarter green cloth with drab paper covered boards, spine lettered and ruled in gilt, edges untrimmed (bookseller’s pencilled notes to front pastedown, near contemporary blindstamp of ‘Samuel Wimpenny, Auctioneer, Share Broker, and Land Agent, Holmfirth’ to front free endpaper, small area of faint marking to title page, pp. 49-50 and 57-58 dog eared, a few isolated instances of pencilled marginal highlighting, contents slightly dusty but otherwise generally unmarked; small areas of marking to spine, boards rather scuffed, still a pleasing, unsophisticated copy). London, Longma, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longman, 1833.
The geologist and political economist George Julius Poulett Scrope (1797-1876) was ‘a vehement critic of the poor laws and of Malthusian doctrines. In his Principles of Political Economy (1833), his most substantial publication on such issues, he argued that the proper aim of the economist was to promote social welfare, using the generation of wealth as a means to that end. He advocated emigration to the colonies as the best solution to the problems of poverty and over-population; indeed he was criticised for treating emigration as a panacea for all social ills’ (ODNB).
