“the outstanding economist of his generation” - first edition with the rare prospectus

First edition of this classic of modern economics, “on which Keynes’s fame as the outstanding economist of his generation must rest” (DNB). World-wide depression induced Keynes to re-examine classical approaches to economics. Urging the use of a national budget as a principal instrument of the planning of the national economy, Keynes placed responsibility for regulation of the economy squarely in the hands of the government. The General Theory introduced important concepts including the consumption function, the multiplier, the marginal efficiency of capital, the principle of effective demand, and liquidity preference.

Keynes began the work, “I have called this book the General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, placing the emphasis on the prefix general. The object of such a title is to contrast the character of my arguments and conclusions with those of the classical theory of the subject, upon which I was brought up and which dominates the economic thought, both practical and theoretical, of the governing and academic classes of this generation, as it has for a hundred years past. I shall argue that the postulates of the classical theory are applicable to a special case only and not to the general case, the situation which it assumes being a limiting point of the possible positions of equilibrium. Moreover, the characteristics of the special case assumed by the classical theory happen not to be those of the economic society in which we actually live, with the result that its teaching is misleading and disastrous if we attempt to apply it to the facts of experience” (General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, p. 3)

This is the finest copy we have ever handled and the only example we have seen accompanied by the original prospectus.

Printing and the Mind of Man 423. New York Public Library Books of the Century 142

$24,000