AN HISTORICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL DEDUCTION OF THE ORIGIN OF COMMERCE

 

ANDERSON, Adam.  AN HISTORICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL DEDUCTION OF THE ORIGIN OF COMMERCE. Two Volumes.                                               

London: A,. Millar, J. and R. Tonson, and others, 1764. Folio. Contemporary quarter calf, marble papered boards. x, xxxiv, (iii), 500 pages; (ii), 434; Chronological Index (126); Postscript (4); Appendix 111; Index (5) pages. First edition.

According to the title page, it contains the "Origin of commerce, from the earliest accounts of time to the present time.  Containing, an history of the great commercial interests of the British Empire.  To which is prefixed, an introduction, exhibiting a view of the ancient and modern state of Europe; of the importance of our colonies; and of commerce, shipping, manufactures, fisheries, &c. of Great Britain and Ireland: and their influence on the landed interest.   With an appendix, containing the modern politico-commercial geography of the several countries of Europe."  There are regular references to the colonies.   Those for Virginia begin with Sir Walter Raleigh's attempt to established a colony in the New World in 1584 up to references in 1740 to tobacco shipments to England from both Virginia and Maryland.  Copies of the book were in Virginia libraries including those of John Mercer of Marlborough, Lord Botetourt, the royal governor of the colony, Thomas Jefferson, and Ralph Wormeley in Rosegill Plantation in Middlesex County.  Jefferson and Wormeley owned the later 1790 octavo edition of this popular work.  While many copies (but not all) of this edition of Anderson's work have up to three folding maps in the first volume, there is no evidence our copy was ever bound in the eighteenth century with maps.  Being that it is an untrimmed copy, it probably was never intended to have plates.  Bookplates of Colonial Williamsburg Foundation library on the inside of the front boards of both volumes.  Hinges strengthened.  Lacks the three folding maps, however, copies of the three maps are loosley paid-in.  Text collates complete with untrimmed leaves.  Boards worn along edges.

 

$1,500.00