Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 257.: To [THOMAS CADELL] - Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence Vol. 6 Correspondence of Adam Smith

Return to Title Page for Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence Vol. 6 Correspondence of Adam Smith

257.: To [THOMAS CADELL] - Adam Smith, Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence Vol. 6 Correspondence of Adam Smith [1740]

Edition used:

Correspondence of Adam Smith, ed. E. C. Mossner and I. S. Ross, vol. VI of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1987).

Part of: The Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith, 7 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


257.

To [THOMAS CADELL]

Sotheby’s Catalogue 478 (27 Oct. 1959), 96 (extract).

. . . I should be glad to know in what degree of demand the theory of Moral Sentiments still continues to be. The eight and twenty years property are now near expired. But I hope to be able to secure you in the property for at least fourteen years more . . .1

[1 ]By the Copyright Act of 1709, fourteen years of exclusive rights were secured upon publication of a book, after which the author, if alive, had another fourteen years of copyright. Since much of his investment was in the copyright of books, William Strahan supported a movement for perpetual copyright in 1774, but the House of Lords rejected the Bill. Johnson and Hume were opposed to perpetual copyright (Cochrane, Life of Strahan, London, 1964, 132–5). Smith objected to monopolies as hindering competition, but put the case for the temporary monopoly granted to inventors of new machines and authors of new books in LJ (A) 2, 31–3 and WN V.i.e.30.