"MEN GO MAD IN HERDS": MACKAY'S EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS, 1852, LATER USED IN CHARTING THE STOCK MARKET

MACKAY, Charles. Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. London: National Illustrated Library, 1852. Two volumes. Octavo, original publisher's brown gilt- and blind-stamped cloth, elaborately gilt-stamped spines, printed endpapers. $3500.

Second edition of this important, entertaining and influential early study of crowd behavior, subsequently used to explore popular psychology and to chart the stock market, with numerous wood-engraved illustrations, in original cloth.

Charles Mackay, a noted Scottish poet and journalist, attempted in this work to document and explain major "popular delusions" or seemingly irrational instances of mass action and belief. "Men," the author contends, "think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds." In developing his theories of mass behavior, Mackay analyzes a breadth of historical examples ranging from witch hunts, alchemists, and famous haunted houses to the South Sea Bubble of 1720 and the Crusades. The impact of Mackay's work has been remarkably far-reaching, influencing such diverse fields as popular psychology and the charting of the stock market—as noted by The New York Times, which urged: "Any investor who has not read Charles Mackay's "Tulipomania," from his classic Extraordinary Popular Delusions, first published in 1841, should grab this book for that exercise alone." With publisher's advertisements on endpapers in both volumes. See Norman 1406. Owner signature. Bookseller blindstamp. Shelf numbers. Occasional marginal pencil annotations.

Interior generally fine, cloth lovely with just a bit of wear to spine ends. A beautiful fine copy.