AGE-RELATED RENT AND LEASING

MORRIS, GAEL.

Tables for Renewing and Purchasing of Leases. As also for Renewing and Purchasing of Lives. With other Necessary Tables for Computing of Interest, either Simple or Compound + Tables of Simple Interest, Exactly Computed For 1 to 12 Months, and For 1 Day to 91 Days.

London, J. Brotherton, 1735. 12mo. Bound in one beautiful contemporary full mottled calf binding with four raised bands and red title-label with gilt lettering to spine. Single gilt line-border to boards, inside which a lovely blindstamped ornamental border to one side. All edges of boards with blindstamped ornamentations. P. 1 has a contemporary neat inscription reading: "Exam.d Morris" - in the author's own hand? Macclesfield copy, with the armorial bookplate of Earls of Macclesfield to pasted down front end-paper and Shirburn Castle (seat of the Earls of Macclesfield) armorial blindstamp to first four leaves Ex-libris. A lovely, clean, and crisp copy. IV, 48 + (2), 92 pp.

Exceedingly scarce first edition of Morris' book of tables for renewing and purchasing leases in relation to age, being the most accurate and comprehensive list of tables published at the time. The work was considered controversial due to the proposed fall in rent in relation to age, which was seen as a discrimination against young people; a concept which today has been implemented in virtually all aspects of banking and insurance.

"As late as 1735, Gael Morris, a writer of commercial manuals on annuities and leases, explained that annuities could frequently be purchased cheaper on lives aged between 30 and 40 than on lives under 25 because 'the Hazards of Persons between 15 and 25 are so many' - a conclusion making some intuitive sense but strictly at odds with the lessons taught by Halley's table. There seems to have existed, in short, a deep reluctance to embrace the discovery that the value of annuities and land leases made for the duration of a life (or lives) varied predictably with the age(s) of the lessee(s)." (Clark, Betting On Lives: The Culture of Life Insurance in England, 1695-1775, p. 116).

Gael Morris worked as a mathematician and astronomer and was the assistant of British astronomer James Bradley for several years, where he helped to compute tables of planetary orbits.

The work is of the utmost scarcity, with only five copies listed on OCLC (two in the US) and merely one copy listed at auction within the last 40 years (being this copy).

Goldsmith: 7269.
Hanson: 4767
Macclesfield: 1455

Order-nr.: 46751