Olbie,
ou essai sur les moyens de réformer les moeurs d'une nation.
Paris: Deterville and Treuttel & Wurtz, an VIII de la République [1800] Stock Code: 126479
An inscribed and beautifully bound copy
First edition of Say's first publication, inscribed "Monsieur Wardin de la part du fils de l'auteur" in ink on the half-title. Olbie (from the Greek word olbios, meaning happy or beatific) is a small utopian work which Say submitted as an entry to a morality prize competition organised by the Institut National in 1798. It illustrates "the state of Say's thinking on the topics of industrialism, social class and gender, the relationship between civil society and economic progress and that between civic virtue and economic analysis before he published the first edition of his Traité d'économie politique in 1803" (Forget, p. 10). The recipient of this copy, Monsieur Wardin, is unknown.Description
Octavo (192 x 120 mm), 132 pp. Contemporary red straight-grain morocco, spine divided into seven compartments, gilt-lettered direct in second, others gilt-tooled with floral and star motifs, boards elaborately framed in gilt with flower-and-acorn cornerpieces, blue patterned endpapers.
Condition
Spine ends and corners lightly rubbed, the occasional mark to contents, else a bright, clean, and attractively bound copy.
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