Commerce

18066 — A Amsterdam, Chez Jacques Coeur, à la corne d'Abondance (Paris), 1756. 3 volumes. xii, 372 pp.; 406 pp.; 350 pp. 8vo. Contemporary marbled calf, spines richly gilt in compartments, labels with gilt lettering and numbering. Mars 27; Weulersse, i, p. xxvii; Kress 5526; Goldsmiths 9082; Einaudi 2659; Mattioli 1481; INED 2079; Higgs 1145. First edition, second issue. Einaudi's copy is identical with ours, about the Kress and Goldsmiths copies not much can be said, both collections contain more than one copy and they both indicate that there is one copy with a third volume with the indication 'Nouvelle édition', as does our third volume. According to Mars, Ange Goudar, cet inconnu, essai bio-bibliographique, the third volume came from the same press as the first two volumes but with a different ornamental typography. Between the first issue and this issue, there appeared, according to Mars, a parisian contrefaçon, all published in 1756. This is the main work of Goudar. It was used by the demographer Süssmilch in his Die goetliche ordnung. Voltaire had a copy in his library and Diderot wrote about the book in a letter to Sophie Volland. Preceding Mirabeau's l'Ami des Hommes by a few months, it marks an important date in the history of political economy, and made Goudar one of the leading figures of the school of 'des agrariens et populationnistes', not to be mixed with the Physiocrats, which they preceded and with whom they disagreed on various points. 'Of the pre-physiocratic French writers who approached the population problem in terms of agricultural values and reforms, Ange Goudar (1720-1791) was the most important' (Spengler, French predecessors of Malthus, pp. 56-67.) Spengler's analysis is elaborate and shows the crucial importance of this work. - Some corners somewhat damaged.