Books

Re-issue of the first edition sheets, first issued in Evreux and Paris in 1831, here with a new date and imprint on the front wrapper and title page. This is the first and principal work of Auguste Walras (1801-1866) and proved a major influence on his son Léon's marginal utility theory. The work is chiefly concerned with a study of value and is perhaps the first long treatise published on the subject (Howey, p. 29). Walras opposed the two existing schools of thought on value: the French writers who based it on utility and the English economists who tended towards a labour or cost-of-production theory. Instead, he determined the value of goods by assessing their scarcity in relation to human desires, a concept he called raretè and returned to many times during his career. "There are many passages in his writings in which he appears to be on the point of enunciating in precise language the more correct views that are now associated with the names of his son Léon Walras and Jevons... but a perusal of his earliest book is quite sufficient to show that he was a man of great originality of thought" (Palgrave III, p. 652). Octavo (218 x 132 mm). Twentieth-century half vellum, red morocco label, marbled sides. Original wrappers bound in. Lengthy closed tears repaired to pp. vii/viii, xi/xii, & 41/42, all into text without loss, upper outer corner of pp. ix/ix restored (not affecting text), chip to pp. 1/2 adhered to following page slightly obscuring text. Despite these early faults, contents otherwise clean: a very good, wide-margined copy. Einaudi 5960; Goldsmiths' 26693; Kress C.2997; Mattioli 3793 (all for 1831 issue). Richard S. Howey, The Rise of the Marginal Utility School, 1989.