FIRST SWEDISH EDITION OF "THE WEALTH OF NATIONS"

SMITH, ADAM.

En Undersökning av Folkens Välstånd dess Natur och Orsaker. Översättning av D:r Emil Sommarin. [i.e. Swedish "Wealth of Nations"]. 2 volumes.

Lund, C. W. K. Gleerups förlag, 1909 & 1911.

8vo. Both volumes in the original printed wrappers. Light wear to spines, otherwise a very fine and clean set. XVI,191, (4), 179 pp.

First edition of the first Swedish translation of Adam Smith's ground-breaking main work, the "Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations".

Smaller parts of the book had previously been translated into Swedish (in 1800, 1804 and 1869), but the present translation is considered the first actual translation of the work (even though some parts have been excluded by translator Emil Sommarin, who based his translation the 5th English edition, the last edition to be supervised by Adam Smith himself). It is to this date the only Swedish translation of the work, which tells us a lot about the history of Swedish economics.

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).

Translator Emil Sommarin (1874-1955) was a student of Knut Wicksell, arguably the most influential Swedish economist, and Sommarin succeeded Wicksell's professorship in national economics. Wicksell "came to know his classics very well and became and remained an admirer of Adam Smith. Around 1910 he also assisted his former student and successor as economics professor in Lund, Emil Sommarin, with the translation of WN, still the most complete we have in Sweden. In this connection he wrote to a friend in Uppsala, "It is almost unbelievable that we have been denied this masterpiece for 125 years and our economic policy is a result of the omission" (Cheng-Chung Lai, Adam Smith Across Nations, p. 384).

Order-nr.: 58833