Books

1761. SMITH, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. London: Printed for A. Millar, in the Strand; and A. Kincaid and J. Bell in Edinburgh, 1761. Octavo, contemporary full brown calf rebacked with original spine laid down, raised bands, red morocco spine label, renewed endpapers. Housed in a custom chemise and clamshell box. $16,500.Scarce and important second edition of Smith’s first book, the first with Smith’s major additions and revisions at the core of “his central concepts of sympathy and the impartial spectator” (Tribe, 14), a work increasingly regarded as “one of the truly outstanding books in the intellectual history of the world” (Amartya Sen).Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, his first book, is ""one of the truly outstanding books in the intellectual history of the world"" (Amartya Sen). First published in 1759, it laid the foundation for Wealth of Nations and proposed the theory repeated in the later work: that self-seeking men are often ""led by an invisible…