Essays in Persuasion

London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1931. First Edition. Hardcover. This is the first edition, first printing, of the first book of essays by John Maynard Keynes, in very good plus condition in the original dust jacket – scarce thus.

The binding is square and tight with bright gilt, unfaded green cloth, sharp corners, and only minor shelf wear to extremities. The contents are notably bright with almost no spotting. Age-toning and minor blemishes are confined to the page edges. The original “10/6 NET” price is intact on the lower front flap. There is irregular loss at the spine ends to a maximum depth of .75 inch (1.9 cm) and lesser loss at the flap fold corners. The jacket is protected beneath a clear, removable, archival cover. This book came to us by way of Japan, and there is a small red ink stamp to the lower rear pastedown featuring what are ostensibly Japanese characters. The only other previous ownership mark is that of “Leonard C. Marsh | Apr. 1932.” inked on the front free endpaper recto. Leonard Charles Marsh (1906-1983) was a British-born Canadian social scientist who published several books on employment in Canada and worked with the Canadian government, the League for Social Reconstruction, and the United Nations.

John Maynard Keynes, Baron Keynes (1883–1946) was, at once, “philosopher, economist, editor, pamphleteer, company chairman, college bursar, patron of the arts and intimate friend of writers and artists, government spokesman and adviser.” Nonetheless, “It is primarily as an economist that Keynes is remembered” and in which his influence is most conspicuously manifest.

As succinctly printed on the dust jacket’s front face, this volume gathers “various writings on public affairs from 1919 to 1931 (including some extracts from his published books). The essays taken as a whole embody forecasts and recommendations made by the author on a variety of subjects which can now be checked by the course of events. The book is divided into five sections which deal respectively with (1) The Treaty of Peace [The Treaty of Versailles, formally concluding the First World War], (2) Inflation and Deflation, (3) The Return to the Gold Standard, (4) Politics, and (5) The Future.” In the preface, Keynes humorously yet perhaps not entirely in jest suggests that the book could have been called “Essays in Prophecy and Persuasion”, because “the prophecy, unfortunately, has been more successful than the persuasion…”

As if to underscore that point, perhaps the most important and prescient in this collection is Keynes’s critique of the implausible terms of post-First World War peace imposed on Germany. Keynes criticized the final draft treaty as “a paper settlement which even if accepted cannot be expected to last.” (ODNB) His sentiments were echoed by Winston Churchill, who cautioned that the terms of the treaty would lead Germany to renewed bellicosity. In objection, Keynes resigned from his treasury post three weeks before the treaty was signed, declaring “I can do no more good here…the battle is lost.” (ODNB) The coming decades terribly vindicated the concerns shared by Keynes and Churchill via the failure of the Weimar Republic (soon after this volume was published), the rise of Adolf Hitler, and the unprecedented conflagration of the Second World War.

Also noteworthy is where Keynes disagreed with Churchill. In the mid-1920s, Keynes vigorously opposed Britain’s return to the gold standard under then-Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston S. Churchill. Two years before this essay collection was published came the Wall Street crash. “In November 1929… Keynes was appointed a member of the Macmillan committee on finance and industry, set up by the Labour government to report on how the banking system affected the working of the economy. Two months later he was asked to join the Economic Advisory Council, made up of senior ministers and an assorted group of outside experts…” (ODNB) Keynesian policies would play a large role in social and economic stabilization during the Great Depression. (IMF)