Landmark Books in All Fields
ItemID: #116275
Cost: $11,500.00

Progress and Poverty

Henry George

“THE MOST INFLUENTIAL OF AMERICAN WORKS ON ECONOMICS”: RARE "AUTHOR'S EDITION" OF PROGRESS AND POVERTY, FIRST EDITION, ONE OF ONLY 200 COPIES ISSUED

GEORGE, Henry. Progress and Poverty. San Francisco: W.M. Hinton, 1879. Octavo, original blind-stamped brown cloth rebacked with original spine laid down. Housed in a custom chemise and slipcase. $11,500.

Limited first edition of Henry George’s “most famous work,” the rare "Author's Edition" of only 200 copies, the work that prompted the Single Tax movement, with the very rare advertisement leaf asking that no reviews be published.

"The most influential of American works on economics, this book gave its author an international reputation as prophet and reformer. He proposed to abolish poverty and secure fair distribution of the rewards of labor by appropriating all economic rent by taxation, and abolishing all taxation except upon land values. Today the slogan of the single tax still unites the followers of Henry George" (Grolier 100 Influential American Books 81). "Progress and Poverty is George's most famous work" (Roll, 387). "Following the English economist David Ricardo, George asserted that rent was 'determined by the excess of [land's] produce over that which the same application can secure from the least productive land in use'… By means of his vigorous oratorical style and his direct and simple writing, George had popularized a doctrine that combined trenchant criticism of inequality in modern society with celebration of the potential contribution of technological development and individual endeavor" (ANB).

To 20th-century economist Leland Yeager, Henry George "was a profound and original economist. He independently arrived at several of the most characteristic insights of the 'Austrian' School" ("Henry George and Austrian Economics"). "Author's Edition" stated on title page. Precedes the first trade edition. With the rarely found publisher's review slip asking no reviews be printed on receipt of this limited edition. Streeter 4284. Howes G106. Bookplates of noted collectors Daniel M. Friedenberg and Thomas Wayne Norris. Norris was particularly noted for his book collection of rare Californiana; in addition to assembling a noted collection of first editions, Friedenberg was the author of several novels and histories.

Interior with a bit of marginal toning, rare original cloth rebacked with original spine laid down. Quite rare and important.

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