Books

First edition, first impression, of Keynes's most comprehensive work on monetary theory, anticipating many of the ideas of the General Theory. "The Treatise was the product of a long intellectual struggle to escape from the ideas in which he had been reared, later dubbed 'classical economics'; for example, the Ricardian view that supply creates its own demand. The focus of the book was on money and prices rather than on output and employment: it contained a full study of the operation of the monetary system, national and international. Fluctuations in prices were no longer explained in terms of changes in the stock of money as in the quantity theory, but in terms of the pressure of demand on the available supply of resources; and the pressure of demand was represented as varying with the magnitude of any divergence between the volume of investment and the availability of savings to finance it" (ODNB). Two vols, octavo. Original blue cloth, spines lettered in gilt, double line rules in gilt to spines continued in blind to front covers. Numerous tables and diagrams to the text. Slight restoration at joints and extremities, vol. II a little soiled and bumped with bookplate of University of London Commerce Degree Bureau to front pastedown and their loan slip to rear pastedown. A good copy. Moggridge A7.1.