[CONDORCET (Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de).]

Vie de M. Turgot.

Gertis’s edition ‘B’. 8vo. [6], 246 pp., with the half title. Contemporary mottled calf, spine with five single raised bands, second panel lettered in gilt on morocco label, the rest with simple floral gilt stamps, marbled endpapers, red edges (engraved armorial bookplate ‘Ex Libria Clementis, Gaillard’ to front pastedown, just a hint of faint spotting to title, contents otherwise generally clean and unmarked; repair work to tips of spine and corners, rear cover only slightly scuffed, notwithstanding a very good copy overall). Londres, n.p, 1786.

£650.00

‘Contrary to what is suggested by the title, this book was not a biography but rather an exposé of Turgot’s educational, political, and economic ideas’ (Gerits). The text is particularly significant for containing a footnote displaying Condorcet’s early attempt to apply mathematics to economics in which he discusses the various mathematical ways ‘in which indirect taxation could be replaced by direct taxation and the effects of such a change’ (Theocharis, Early developments in mathematical economics, p. 65).

One of four editions published in the same year, all of which give ‘Londres’ as the place of publication, this being Gertis’s edition ‘B’ with the ‘Avis de l’éditeur’ following the Avertissement, but no errata list and the misprints corrected.

See: Anton Gertis, ‘Condorcet’s Vie de Monsieur Turgot’, Harvard Library Bulletin 3 (4), Winter 1992-93, pp. 35-37.

Stock No.
247955