Booms and Depressions. Some First Principles - Irving Fisher, LL. D.

1932 - Adelphi Company, New York - First Edition
First edition of this now acknowledged classic presenting the theory of Great Depressions by the leading American economist of his generation, who many consider ‘the father of monetary economics’ (Pressman, 91), along with Milton Friedman.

Rare in such a bright and intact delicate dust jacket.
 
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Price HK$ 35,000



The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money - John Maynard Keynes

1936 - Macmillan and Co., London - First Edition, First Printing
First edition of one of the most influential economic treatises of the 20th century rare with the scarce dust jacket in this superior condition, together with a laid in signature ‘Sincerely yours, JM Keynes’.

The General Theory is nothing less than an epic journey out of intellectual darkness. That, as much as its continuing relevance to economic policy, is what makes it a book for the ages. Read it, and marvel.’ - Paul Krugman, Professor of Economics, winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics. 
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Price HK$ 120,000



Principles of Economics. Vol. I. [all published]. - Alfred Marshall

1890 - Macmillan and Co., London - First Edition
A fine bright first edition of Marshall’s masterpiece, in the original cloth, and housed in a bespoke cloth clamshell case.

The seminal text of Neoclassical economics, effectively reconciling the classical and more modern theories of value by bringing together the principles of supply and demand, marginal utility and costs of production into a coherent whole. One of the few works in the history of economic thought that can claim to contain an original treatment of almost the entire economic theory of its time.

‘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 ... More than any other economist – with the exception, perhaps, of Pareto – Marshall pointed beyond himself....’ (Schumpeter).
 
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Price HK$ 80,000



Principles of Political Economy - John Stuart Mill

1849 - John W. Parker, London - Second Edition
Scarce second edition of the ‘brilliant John Stuart Mill's major work, a treatise that marked the culmination of classical economics, and was considered ‘the undisputed bible of economic doctrine’. The second edition makes significant additions to the sections on the future of the working class and socialism, an indication of his concerns for the welfare of the labouring class and evidence of Mill's movement towards becoming what Schumpeter describes as an "evolutionary socialist".

One of the most widely read of all books on economics in the nineteenth century. As Adam Smith's
Wealth of Nations had during an earlier period, Mill's text dominated economics teaching; In the case of Oxford University it was the standard text until 1919, when replaced by Alfred Marshall's theories.

‘To many generations of students, Mill’s
Principles was the undisputed bible of economic doctrine. They represented the final synthesis of classical theory and of refinements introduced by post-Ricardian writers. They were comprehensive, systematic, and, with few exceptions, they presented their theorems without pugnacity which strengthened the impression of assurance and unquestioned authority’ (Roll). 
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Price HK$ 7,000



The Jungle - Upton Sinclair

1906 - Doubleday, New York - First Edition
‘Pierces the thickest skull and most leathery heart.’ - Winston Churchill

‘The brutally grim story of a Slavic family who emigrates to America,
The Jungle tells of their rapid and inexorable descent into numbing poverty, moral degradation, and social and economic despair.

‘Sinclair's nightmarish narrative of the immigrant Rudken family instigated a series of legislative measures that were highly successful. His lurid scenes of a meat packing industry that ground both rates and fingers into sausage aroused the middle class to demand sanitary conditions for food preparation.

Yet far less effective by comparison was his severe indictment of the working conditions that regularly reduced laborers to impoverished insanity. As Sinclair later wryly observed, “
I aimed for the heart and hit the stomach of America”.’ – Emory Elliot, The Columbia Literary History of the United States. 
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Price HK$ 9,000



An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. With A Life of the Author, an Introductory Discourse, Notes, and Supplemental Dissertations by J. R. M Culloch, Esq. - Adam Smith, J. R. McCulloch

1828 - Printed for Adam Black, Edinburgh - First McCulloch Edition
Four volumes in contemporary bindings, with a portrait frontispiece of Smith in Volume 1 after the Tassie bust. ‘Of real importance is [this] edition by John Ramsay McCulloch (1828) which contains a life of Smith and numerous notes, first published in four volumes and later in single-volume editions which for some three decades were used by students almost to the exclusion of others’. [Bullock]

First published in 1776, ‘the same year as the American Declaration of Independence, it has been argued that the global effect of Smith’s work has exceeded that of American constitutionalists. And if the wealth of a nation or a people is the foundation of all else, then from Hong Kong and Shanghai to Peru, from the oil and gas fields of Russia to the United States itself, from Estonia to Australia, it can be claimed that the principles and economic dynamics at work in all these places come from a book by a scholar of Scotland published before the French Revolution, before the Industrial Revolution and eighty four years before Das Kapital by Karl Marx.’ - Melvyn Bragg – 12 Books That Changed the World.
 
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Price HK$ 25,000



Glibson - George Tichenor

1933 - Farrar &, New York - First Edition
Meet Mr. Glibson, a boomtime banker, who’s glided through depression and still lives high, wide and handsome......

This is the story of how he became the great Blabit of banking. The most withering portrayal of financial boobery in high places, savage, ruthless, funny, wise and courageous.


A kaleidoscopic view of many lives in the business turmoil leading up to and away from the crash of 1929. As Public Relations Counsel, later, banker, Glibson is successful because he stands for nothing and though he is unscrupulous and ambitious he is understandable and even likeable. The story is good reporting, good dialogue, sometimes honest and sometimes theatrical. Occasionally reminiscent of Dos Passos. A book for men, and may get a challenging sort of press. -
An early review. 
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Price HK$ 4,200



The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior - John Von Neumann, Oscar Morgenstern

1944 - Princeton University Press, Princeton - First Edition
A fine first edition of Von Neumann and Morgenstern’s monumental presentation of Game Theory, in the rare dust jacket and complete with ‘Corrigenda’ slip. Together with Nobel prize winning economist Richard Stone’s rare and detailed 1948 review of ‘Theory of Games’, finely bound. Each housed in bespoke cloth cases.

‘Game theory, it may reasonably be claimed, has proved to be one of the more significant scientific contributions of the twentieth century. Albeit haltingly and unevenly, and in a manner quite unforeseeable in 1944 when the
Theory of Games and Economic Behavior was published, it has affected not only economics and political science but also evolutionary biology, ethics, and philosophy proper. Within economics, particular areas such as microeconomic theory, industrial organization, international trade, and experimental economics have all been reshaped under the theory’s influence.’ (Leonard)

‘The classic work in both game theory and its application to decision-making in economics and business’. (Bernstein).

‘Had it merely called our attention to the existence and exact nature of certain fundamental gaps in economic theory,
Theory of Games would have been a book of outstanding importance. But it does more than that. It is essentially constructive: where existing theory is considered to be inadequate, the authors put in its place a highly novel analytical apparatus designed to cope with the problem’. (Hurwicz) 
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Price HK$ 120,000