"ONE OF THE MOST GENUINELY ORIGINAL ECONOMISTS WHO EVER LIVED" (SCHUMPETER)

JEVONS, William Stanley. Investigations in Currency and Finance. Edited, with an Introduction, by H.S. Foxwell. London: Macmillan, 1884. Octavo, original rust cloth. $1300.

First edition, with 20 charts and illustrations, many folding, including large folding chart at rear.

As an original thinker on practical matters of economics, Jevons belongs in the first order of 19th-century English economists. He is best remembered for his original work regarding the connection between value in exchange and marginal utility, a subject that Menger and members of the Austrian School were concurrently examining. Investigations in Currency and Finance, published two years after Jevons drowned in 1882, includes earlier papers on a variety of topics. Among these are "On the Study of Periodic Commercial Fluctuations," "The Variation of Prices, and the Value of the Currency since 1782," "The Depreciation of Gold," "An Ideally Perfect System of Currency" (previously unpublished), and "The Silver Question." Jevons' lifelong interest in science is reflected in "Commercial Crises and Sun-Spots," an interesting essay on the connection between the appearance of sunspots and cycles of economic crisis. Jevons' "papers in the fields of money, prices, and fluctuations were collected posthumously in Investigation in Currency and Finance. They indicate that he was a pioneer in the graphic presentation of economic and financial statistics" (IESS VIII:256). With errata slip. Contemporary ink owner signature of John M. Gaines, a graduate from Yale's doctoral program who was once thanked by Irving Fisher in The Quarterly Journal of Economics.

Large folding chart with cloth reinforcement to verso, shallow ink blot to edge of text block, cloth generally quite nice. A near-fine copy. Scarce.