Galiani, Ferdinand

Correspondance Inedite de l'Abbe Ferdinand Galiani, Conseiller du Roi de Naples, Avec Mme. d'Epinay, le Baron d'Holbach, le Baron de Grimm, et Autres Personnages Celebres du XVIII Siecle [FRENCH TEXT]

Paris: Chez Treuttel et Wurtz, 1818. Hard Cover. Very Good / No Jacket. Item #2304655

Boards lightly rubbed, front endpaper of Volume I missing.

Two volume set. French text. Morocco spines, paper over boards. Correspondence of the Italian economist and prominent figure in the Enlightenment, who was praised by Voltaire and Nietzsche. The title translates as "Unpublished Correspondence From Abbot Ferdinand Galiani, Adviser To The King Of Naples, With Mme. D'Epinay, Baron D'Holbach, Baron De Grimm, and Other Famous Figures from the XVIII Century." Galiani (1728-1787) served as secretary to the Neapolitan embassy in Paris from 1759 to 1770. There, especially through the salon of Madame d’Epinay, he became acquainted with the leading intellectual figures of France (as well as Hume and Adam Smith). He had already, at the age of twenty-two, published a classic study, Trattato della moneta (1751), which in its subjectivist idea of value is said to anticipate the later theories of Jevons and Menger. Galiani was much admired as a writer and wit, traits evident in Dialogues sur le commerce des bleds (2 vols, 1770). It is a scathing critique of the Physiocrats, who are ridiculed as dull and doctrinaire. The question at issue was that of the freedom of the corn trade, then much agitated, and, in particular, the policy of the royal edict of 1764, which permitted the exportation of grain so long as the price had not reached a certain height. The general principal he maintains is that the best system in regard to this trade is to have no system—countries differently circumstanced requiring… different modes of treatment. — EB (13th ed.). Galiani produced a voluminous correspondence after leaving Paris: the present volume contains a letter each to Diderot, Grimm, and Morellet, two to Holbach, many to Mme. d’Epinay, and others. There were two entirely separate editions of Correspondance published in 1818; this is the one edited by Barbier. Einaudi 2327. Goldsmiths' 22017. Kress S.6262. INED 1947. Quérard III, page 241.

Price: $250.00