Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions.
London: Richard Bentley, 1841 Stock Code: 128845
In the original cloth
First edition. Mackay's important early work of social psychology discusses popular delusions of all types and considers the credulous enthusiasm of mankind for phenomena such as alchemy, witchcraft, relics, the Crusades, urban myths, as well as economic events such as the tulip bubble, the Mississippi Bubble, and the South Sea Bubble. Still in print, Mackay's book has had a profound influence on economics and sociology, with many modern economists referring to his work when analysing the stock market bubbles of our own age. "Charles Mackay's passionate erudition and urbane, unaffected prose style contributed to make him one of the chief figures in the establishment of Victorian journalism as a dignified profession" (ODNB).Description
3 volumes, octavo. Original brown cloth, recased, flat spines lettered in gilt and ruled in blind, boards elaborately decorated in blind, yellow endpapers, edges uncut. Housed in a brown quarter morocco solander box by the Chelsea Bindery.
Illustrations
With the publisher's advertisements to the front of volumes 1 and 2. Frontispieces with tissue guards (excepting volume 2) and 2 engraved portrait plates to volume 3.
Condition
Armorial bookplates of Richard Collyer Andrée (1785-1865; lieutenant general in the British Army's Bengal Infantry) to front pastedowns. Spines sunned and a little slanted, ends and corners bumped, cloth scuffed with a few areas of wear and discolouration, including a horizontal marking to front board of vol. 2, one short closed tear to fore edge of vol. 2 sig. U2, in all a very good set, the contents bright and clean.
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