SWEDISH TRANSLATION OF ADAM SMITH'S WEALTH OF NATIONS

SMITH, ADAM.

Politisk undersökning om lagar, som hindra och tvinga införseln af sådana utländska varor, som kunna alstras eller tillverkas inom landet. Göteborg. (i.e. English: "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations").

Göteborg (S. Norberg) 1804.

8vo. In contemporary grey blank wrappers. Stamp to front wrapper, verso of front wrapper, title-page and p. 17. Otherwise fine. (12), (1)-51, (1) pp.

The exceedlingly rare second part of the Swedish Bodell-translation of Adam Smith's 'Wealth of Nations' book IV. . Bodell published translations of excerpts of Smith's landmark work in 1800 and 1804. A more lengthy translation was made in 1909 - 1911 but to this day a full Swedish translation has not been made.

Despite the comparatively late translation into Swedish, it still had a profound influence, not on economists since they were well aware of the original work in English, but upon politics and public opinion in general:
"There are few things more striking to the modem student of the history of ideas in Sweden than the negative phenomenon that Sweden was almost entirely uninfluenced by this fact and thus remained almost unaffected by English economic thought during a period when its superiority was most evident. As far as I am acquainted with the Swedish economic discussion and our popular economic literature of the 1860's and 1870's, there is almost no trace of any influence from English writers. [...]Of Adam Smith we have still only one abbreviated translation of his famous work and that was published as late as during this century; and, as far as I know, nothing of Ricardo's or Malthus' exists in Swedish, nor do any of the major economic works of J.S. Mill." (Heckscher, A survey of economic thought in Sweden, 1875-1950).

Cheng-chung Lai, A17, 2.
Vanderblue p. 33.

Order-nr.: 58583