A RARE first edition of Fife philosopher Adam Smith’s most famous work, The Wealth of Nations, is expected to fetch up to £45,000 at auction.
Smith, from Kirkcaldy, published the first major work of political economy while living in London in 1776.
The book, which took the Enlightenment thinker almost 10 years to write at his mother’s home in Kirkcaldy, earned him the title “the father of modern economics”.
The rare copy will be among the highlights of Bonhams’ sale of Fine Books and Manuscripts in London on March 1.
Originally priced at £1 16s, it is now expected to make between £35,000 and £45,000.
Matthew Haley, Bonhams’ head of books, said: “Adam Smith was a leading figure of the Scottish Enlightenment and arguably the one whose views and theories have had the greatest reach.
“The Wealth of Nations is the first and greatest classic of modern economic thought.”
Smith was born in Kirkcaldy in June 1723, and studied at Glasgow University and Balliol College, Oxford.
He was made a professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow University but later moved to London, where he published his “Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” at the age of 52. Around 2,000 copies were originally published.
It addressed topics such as the division of labour, productivity and free markets.
Smith argued against the regulation of commerce and trade and wrote that, if people were set free to better themselves, it would produce economic prosperity for all.
In 2005, The Wealth of Nations was named among the 100 Best Scottish Books of all time Smith is still considered to be among the most influential thinkers in the field. He died in Edinburgh in 1790, aged 67.
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