GRASLIN, Jean.

£3,750 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Essai analytique sur la richesse et sur l'impôt, Rare first edition of one of the most important works written against the physiocrats, this copy from the library of Abbé André Morellet, with his engraved bookplate to the front pastedown.One of the few enlightenment writers to live into and beyond the years of the Revolution and Napoleon, André Morellet (1727-1819) wrote numerous treatises in favour of economic liberalisation and contributed articles to Diderot's Encyclopédie. Morellet's library was vast - eventually numbering 4,718 items - and reflected "seven decades of reading by a diligent participant in the republic of letters", with "strong holdings of English-language works, Elzevir editions, and 18th-century publications on political economy. He monitored his library carefully, watching out for new volumes to be added, keeping his catalogue up to date, and making sure that borrowed items were returned" (Medlin, p. 574). The subsequent auction in 1819 raised a total of 22,169 francs; this copy was lot number 1370.Graslin (1727-1790) was, from 1757, "receveur général des fermes" in Nantes. He was a steady and consistent opponent of the tenets of the physiocrats on the subject of the net product. Some physiocrats considered him a greater adversary than Forbonnais. This essay was written to prove two propositions: the first, that the produce of land is wealth even when there is no "produit net", namely when the cost of cultivation is equal to the value of the produce, and

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