The Commercial Nobility

The Commercial Nobility Abbé Coyer. London, 1756. Mention "New edition", printed the same year as the first edition. Duodecimo (12mo), 215 pp. Full calf leather binding of the period with red edges. Smooth spine with floral motifs and title label. Lower headcap slightly rubbed, small losses on the joint of the upper board. Fresh interior. Frontispiece engraved by Sornique after a drawing by Charles Eisen. Complete copy without foxing. Good copy, well-preserved, of an early 1756 impression belonging to the first states of the book's distribution. Regular signatures with a slight irregularity in quire G indicating a correction or recomposition during printing, a common phenomenon in Parisian prints of this period under the fictitious address "London" and distribution by Duchesne in Paris. An important work of the economic debates of the Enlightenment, advocating the integration of the nobility into commercial activities, in a context of questioning the social hierarchies of the Ancien Régime. The Frontispiece illustrates a nobleman leaving the attributes of nobility and walking onto the gangway of a merchant ship with the mention "What use is this vain accumulation of useless Glory" This text was the subject of lively debates, attacks, and responses; laying the foundations of the future French economic and productive system.