Dr Emily Dourish, Deputy Keeper of Rare Books and Early Manuscripts, writes:
Cambridge University Library is very grateful to the Friends of the National Libraries for their generous grant of half the acquisition price of this fascinating volume. The book in itself is not a rare edition of Smith; the value for research lies in the presentation of the copy. It is interleaved and contains over 180 pages of manuscript notes by a student attending a series of lectures given by Robert Malthus to students at the Haileybury East India College, which trained administrators for the Honourable East India Company. Malthus was speaking on the text of The wealth of nations. The notes each comprise a question about Smith’s text, and a transcription or summary of Malthus’s answer.
The University Library’s collections already include a copy of a later edition of The wealth of nations with similar but much briefer annotations by J. D. Inverarity, another student at Haileybury. He transcribed primarily the questions, with only a few of Malthus’s answers. The Inverarity notes have already been used as a source for Malthus’s interpretation of Smith. This new acquisition gives the opportunity to study two parallel sets of notes made at the same time, to make a direct comparison not only of what Malthus said, but also of the interpretation of it by his students. The two students appear to have taken interest in different parts of the lecture series, with more and less detailed transcriptions in different sections. The addition of this work to our collections enables the analysis of these contrasting notes and will provide a greater depth of understanding of these two fundamental economic thinkers.
