skip to content

Faculty of Economics

The Marshall Library received a proof book of Alfred Marshall’s First Edition of Principles of Economics as a donation earlier this year. Prof. Uemiya from Kobe University in Japan travelled to the UK to return the book, which had been part of Marshall’s collection. The mysterious volume had been ‘lost’ in Japan for most of the C20th and we are still not sure how it came to travel to the country. We do know how it was returned to us and you can read the story on the Marshall Library blog.

http://marshlib.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/the-return-of-alfred-marshalls-book-v.html

The book is significant as it contains extensive handwritten notes by Marshall, his wife Mary Paley, and some others. It also outlines a plan to re-order the chapters, which changed the content of the final first edition significantly . This item is of great interest to scholars of the History of Economics.

The book is full available to view and read online thanks to funding made available from Dr. Murray Milgate at Queens College and the Cambridge University Digital Library.

Please take a look at the item here:

https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/marshall

https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/PR-MARSHALL-ARCHIVES-ROOM-00014-E-00047/1

you can go through the entire book page by page and zoom in to view the handwriting on the manuscript.

Clare Trowell - Marshall Librarian