Select Collection of Scarce and Valuable Economical Tracts

A friend, correspondent and intellectual successor to David Ricardo, John Ramsay McCulloch (1789–1864) forged his reputation in the emerging field of political economy by publishing deeply researched articles in Scottish periodicals and the Encyclopaedia Britannica. From 1828 he spent nearly a decade as professor of political economy in the newly founded University of London, thereafter becoming comptroller of the Stationery Office. Perhaps the first professional economist, McCulloch had become internationally renowned by the middle of the century, recognised for sharing his ideas through lucid lecturing and writing. The present work, privately printed in 1859, contains eleven miscellaneous texts. Contextualised by McCulloch's editorial preface, they range in date from 1685 to 1808, and in content across the economic impact of building, charity, whaling, pawnbroking, the Corn Laws and the Poor Laws. Several other works written or edited by McCulloch are also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection.