Debtor and Creditor Made Easie: Or, a Short Instruction for the attaining the Right Use of Accounts after the Best Method used by Merchants.

MONTEAGE, Stephen.

$4,200.00

Item Number: 103485

London: Printed by John Richardson for Ben. Billingsley, 1682.

Second edition of this rare accounting book; one of the earliest in published in English for a general audience. Octavo, bound in full contemporary calf, red morocco spine label lettered in gilt, woodcut frontispiece portrait of the author within a rich botanical border. In very good condition. Scarce.

"Most of the writings on accounting then available were written for wealthy merchants, who kept a variety of journals, cash books, petty-charge lists, and invoice registers. Ordinary people were not familiar with such procedures, and if they kept accounts at all they probably used a charge-discharge system. Monteage's treatise addressed middle-class merchants. They were advised to keep detailed accounts in a simplified system, based only upon two records, a 'waste' book, or record of first entry, and a general ledger, where these entries were reconciled in a double-entry system" (DNB).