May 2020 Catalogue

61 M a y 2 0 2 0 “Smith Himself Ranked It Above The Wealth Of Nations ” 57. SMITH, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. London, 1761. Octavo, period-style full speckled brown calf gilt. $16,000. Click for More Info Important second edition of Smith’s first book, the first with Smith’s major additions and revisions at the core of “his central concepts of sympathy and the impartial spectator” (Tribe, 14), beautifully bound. Smith’s Moral Sentiments is “one of the truly outstanding books in the intellectual history of the world” (Amartya Sen). First issued in 1759, it laid the foundation for Wealth of Nations and proposed the theory repeated in the later work: that self-seeking men are often “led by an invisible hand… without knowing it, without intending it, to advance the interest of the society.” Kress 5983. First few leaves only expertly cleaned. Beautifully bound in period-style full calf-gilt. “Virtue is excellence, something uncommonly great and beautiful.”