First of all thank you to Alain for his appropriate comment.


I would not find Steuart's reaction surprising.  He was disheartened
by the reception of his great work, which he began with an apology for
inelegant writing.  He also made some comparisons of wage labor and
slavery, which created considerable animosity.

Although WN may not have been a best seller its reception was far
warmer than Steuart's.

p.s. The book also debunks Smith's presentation of the pin factory.



On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 10:02 PM, Peter G. Stillman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> I find Michael Perelman's statements about Smith interesting.
> They do conflict with one fact that may or may not be true (and because I
> learned this years ago I may be misremembering).
> Doing some work on Sir James Steuart's Principles of Political Economy
> (1767), I examined in the LSE library an copy he annotated with an aim to
> publishing a second edition.  But he did not pursue that aim because before
> his revisions were complete Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations and
> Steuart (or his publisher) felt his text no longer viable.
> (As I type the above, I wonder how or where I discovered that for Steuart
> his text was no longer needed or wanted -- perhaps in some post-French
> Revolution text, which would square my story, now made apocryphal, with
> Perelman's.  I certainly do not remember looking at any Steuart
> correspondence [though I might have].
> (On the other hand, unless I am inventing the story out of whole cloth,
> there are those revised and annotated volumes in the LSE library, on which
> Steuart's work came to nought.)
> Best, Peter
>
> --
>
> Peter G. Stillman
> Department of Political Science
> Vassar College (#463)
> 124 Raymond Avenue
> Poughkeepsie, NY 12604-0463
>
> [log in to unmask]
> office:  845-437-5581
> FAX:    845-437-7599
>
> http://faculty.vassar.edu/stillman/



-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA
95929

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http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com