Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions, and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth – The Remedy.

GEORGE, Henry.

$38,000.00

Item Number: 147455

San Francisco: Wm. M. Hinton & Co., Printers, 1879.

True first edition, one of only 200 examples of “the most influential of American works on economics” (Grolier American), one of the highest selling books of the late 1800s which sold more than three million copies soon after publication, exceeding all other books written in the English language with the exception of the Bible during the 1890s. One of 200 copies printed for the author (“author’s edition”) in San Francisco before the Appleton trade edition of 1880 and with the rare inserted slip reading, “This edition is issued by the author in advance of publication. He requests that no notice be made of it, and no copy be sent to the East or Europe until after publication in New York or London is announced.” Octavo, original publisher’s purple pebbled cloth with gilt titles to the spine, salmon endpapers. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “To David Norris compliments of Henry George.” In very good condition. Exceptionally rare in the true first edition and exceedingly so inscribed by the author.

George's first book, Progress and Poverty attempts to answer the questions of why poverty accompanies economic and technological progress and why economies exhibit a tendency toward cyclical boom and bust. "The single tax theory is only incidental in this significant American contribution to economic and sociological thought" (Howes). George's impact on several generations of economic and social thinkers is difficult to overstate. This publication (especially rare in this, the true first edition) ushered in an era of social progressivism, without which (for example) the New Deal could not have existed. Tellingly, Einstein was an admirer: "Men like Henry George are rare unfortunately. One cannot imagine a more beautiful combination of intellectual keenness, artistic form and fervent love of justice. Every line is written as if for our generation." Grolier American 81; Howes G-106.