Finance & Speculation
MONTMORT, Pierre Rémont de; Nicholas Bernoulli; Johann Bernoulli. Essay d'analyse sur les jeux de hazard. Seconde Edition. Revise & augmentée de plusieurs Lettres.Paris : 1713
Second, revised edition of the pioneering study of games of chance, among the first comprehensive studies of probability theory. This edition is the first to publish seven extensive letters from Nicholas and Johann Bernoulli on probability, covering 69 pages in total.
Pierre Rémont de Montmort (1678-1719) devoted his life to resolving the...Learn More
MACKAY, Charles. Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.London and New York : 1870s
A very good copy of this important early work on popular delusions of all types. Charles Mackay's book, still in print, considers the credulous enthusiasm of mankind for phenomena such as alchemy, witchcraft, relics, the Crusades, urban myths, as well as economic events such as the tulip bubble, the Mississippi Bubble, and the South Sea...Learn More
VEBLEN, Thorstein. The Vested Interests and the State of Industrial Arts.New York : 1919
First edition of this extended critique of modern capitalism, contending that industry has subjugated government and that the common man is now presented with a hollow illusion of democracy.Learn More
SMITH, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. With an Introductory Essay and Notes by Joseph Shield Nicholson.London : 1884
First Nicholson edition of the evergreen classic, originally published in London in 1776.
Joseph Shield Nicholson (1850-1927) held the chair of political economy and mercantile law at the University of Edinburgh from 1880 to 1925. His devotion to Adam Smith is "attractive, loyal but not uncritical, admiring but not unctuous. When Nicholson...Learn More
HOOPER, William Eden (compiler). The Stock Exchange in the Year 1900. A Souvenir.London : [1900]
First edition, one of 300 extra-illustrated "Édition De Luxe" copies, in a sumptuous binding with 93 added plates showing famous exchange members.
Long before Joseph Stiglitz identified the widespread near-religious faith in the power of the market, this deluxe edition was directly advertised as being bound "in the best approved...Learn More
PARKER, John Lloyd. Unmasking Wall Street.Boston : 1932
First edition, signed by the author on the title page, of this entertaining exposé of Wall Street practices.
1932 marked the year that the Pecora Commission was established by the US Senate to investigate the causes of the Wall Street crash. Parker's opinions are clear: he writes that "the first prominent resident of [Wall] Street was...Learn More
HILL, John Jr. Gold Bricks of Speculation. A Study of Speculation and Its Counterfeits, and an Expose of the Methods of Bucketshop and "Get-Rich-Quick" Swindles.Chicago : 1904
First edition of this work attempting to distinguish "legitimate speculation" from dastardly gambling and fraud.Learn More
HAMILTON, William Peter. The Stock Market Barometer. A Study of Its Forecast Value Based on Charles H. Dow's Theory of the Price Movement. With an Analysis of the Market and Its History Since 1897.New York : 1922
First edition of this elaboration of the Dow theory by the editor of the Wall Street Journal (1867-1929). Hamilton, the fourth person to edit the WSJ since its founding by Charles H. Dow (1851-1902), aims to apply Dow's theory of market cycles to explain developments in the American economy since 1897, and so to provide Americans with a proven...Learn More
ÉMERIGON, Balthazard-Marie. Traité des assurances et des contrats à la grosse.Marseille : 1783
First edition of this study of commercial insurance and contract law by the prominent lawyer (1716-1784) commonly regarded as the leading French authority on commercial law.Learn More
MULHALL, Michael G. History of Prices since the year 1850.London. : 1885
First edition of this incisive analysis of price fluctuations by the Irish author, economist, and newspaper editor (1836-1900).Learn More
MCWHIRTER, Louise. McWhirter Theory of Stock Market Forecasting.New York : 1938
First edition of this astrological guide to the stock market, which aims "to present in factual form an outstanding new theory of financial astrology" (p. vii).Learn More
LEBENTHAL, Louis S. The ABC of Municipal Bonds.New York : 1937
First edition of this introductory analysis of governmental bonds for the lay investor, by the Wall Street broker (1899-1951) whose firm specialized in such products.Learn More
FRIEDMAN, Milton. The Optimum Quantity of MoneyChicago : 1969
First edition of these 13 essays embodying Friedman's view of monetary theory. The title essay, published here for the first time, "showed that under some conditions deflation would be optimal because it would encourage the use of cash, which costs almost nothing to produce. This essay became one of the most cited in the field of monetary theory"...Learn More
VEGA, Joseph Penso de la. Confusion de Confusiones.The Hague : 1939
First Dutch translation of this famous work, the first to describe the workings of a stock exchange, originally published in Spanish in 1688. The present edition has both the Spanish original and a Dutch translation. It is published as volume ten of the Dutch Economic-History Archive (NEHA).Learn More
LAW, John. Oeuvres;Paris : 1790
First collected edition of the works of the French finance minister John Law, whose financial schemes led to the Mississippi Bubble and economic collapse during Regency France. Apart from Money and Trade Considered, all the works in the collection, including two Mémoires sur les Banques and a number of letters, were previously...Learn More
SCHUMPETER, Joseph Alois. Business Cycles.New York and London : 1939
First edition, in the rare jackets, of one of Schumpeter's most significant contributions to economic theory, among the seminal texts of business cycle literature.
As with his earlier works, Schumpeter placed the entrepreneur at the centre of events, which was perhaps why it "met with a less-than-enthusiastic reception. The monumental...Learn More
PLUQUET, François-André-Adrien. Traité Philosophique Et Politique Sur Le Luxe.Paris : 1786
First edition of this impassioned critique of consumerism, a key example of the shifting attitudes towards luxury in the decades before the French Revolution.
Well before the Industrial Revolution, the long 18th century experienced a remarkable upsurge in the production, consumption, and circulation of material goods across western Europe....Learn More
SPECULATION. Het Groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid,[The Netherlands] : 1721
Second edition of one of the most striking and bizarre books in all economic literature, ruthlessly satirizing - through large engravings with accompanying text - the mass hysteria, greed, credulity, and deception that characterize stock market bubbles. This copy, very unusually, is in a contemporary English binding, perhaps reflecting English...Learn More
LE CLERC, Jean. Reflections Upon what the World Commonly call Good-luck and Ill-luck, With regard to Lotteries.London : 1699
First edition in English of this treatise on lotteries, their social good, and the nature of luck.
The work was first published in Dutch in 1696. "Le Clerc, a Swiss cleric living in Amsterdam, attempted to reconcile the charitable benefits of the Dutch lotteries with their temptations to greed. 'Few men put into them out of a principle of...Learn More
HELFFERICH, Karl. Money.London : 1927
First edition in English of this handsomely produced study of monetary theory, by a leading politician and financier in early 20th-century Germany.
The career of Karl Helfferich (1872-1924) spanned both Imperial and Weimar Germany: he served as secretary of the Treasury during the First World War and was a prominent leader of the right-wing...Learn More
