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PREFACE TO VOLUMES VI - IX - David Ricardo, The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 6 Letters 1810-1815 [1810]

Edition used:

The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, ed. Piero Sraffa with the Collaboration of M.H. Dobb (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005). Vol. 6 Letters 1810-1815.

Part of: The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, 11 vols (Sraffa ed.)

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.


plan of the edition

volume    
I.Principles of Political Economy and Taxation
II.Notes on Malthus
III.Pamphlets and Papers, 1809–1811
IV.Pamphlets and Papers, 1815–1823
V.Speeches and Evidence
VI.Letters, 1810–1815
VII.Letters, 1816–1818
VIII.Letters, 1819-June 1821
IX.Letters, July 1821–1823
X.Biographical Miscellany
XI.General Index

PREFACE
TO VOLUMES VI - IX

These four volumes, now published together and containing Ricardo’s Correspondence, complete the nine which in the preface to Vol. I were promised for early publication. They contain proportionately more new material than any of the previous volumes: of the 555 letters included, 317 are hitherto unpublished. Information about the various series of letters which make up the Correspondence and about the personalities concerned will be found in the Introductory Notes which open this volume. Readers whose chief interest is in the unpublished material can go directly to the Contents or the Index of Correspondents in each volume, where new letters are marked with an asterisk.

Acknowledgement is due to the late Lord Keynes who took an active part in the search for letters and went through these volumes in proof at an early stage; to Professor Jacob Viner and Professor F. A. Hayek who also saw the proofs and made valuable suggestions; and to the late Dr James Bonar and the late Professor J. H. Hollander who allowed use to be made of the introductions and notes to their editions of Ricardo’s letters.

Acknowledgement is also due to Mr Frank Ricardo, Mr C. K. Mill, the late Mr F. E. Cairnes and Mr Robert Malthus, who, as owners of the main collections of letters, have generously placed them at the disposal of the editor; to Sir John Murray, Lady Langman, M. Edgar Raoul-Duval, Mrs Harriet J. Butler and the late Professor H. E. Butler, the Hon. Mrs Eustace Hills, Lady Charnwood and Lt.-Col. O. E. d’Avigdor Goldsmid, who have kindly made available groups of letters or single letters in their possession; to the Trustees of the British Museum, to the Librarians of University College, London, of the National Library of Scotland, of the Overstone Library of the University of Reading, of the Goldsmiths’ Library of the University of London, of the Seligman Library of Columbia University, of the Baker Library of Harvard University, of the Biblioteca Comunale di Pescia, of the Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire de Genève, and to the Moscow Historical Museum, for permission to use letters in their keeping; also to the Delegates of the Oxford University Press, to the American Economic Association and to The Johns Hopkins Press for permission to reproduce letters previously published by them.

Among those who have helped to find letters, special thanks are due to Professor Arthur H. Cole, Professor Hayek, Messrs Maggs Bros., M. E. de Nalèche, Professor George O’Brien and Mr G. W. Zinke. Finally, the editor must thank the innumerable other persons of whom he has made enquiries while seeking for Ricardo’s letters and who, even though without result, have taken trouble on his behalf.

p.s.

trinity college cambridgeFebruary 1952