ABC of Economics (1933)
A34
Editions
a. First edition
ABC | of | ECONOMICS | by | EZRA POUND | LONDON | FABER AND FABER | 24 RUSSELL SQUARE
1 blank leaf, 2 leaves, 7-127, pp. 19.2 x 13 cm. Purple cloth boards lettered in red on spine; end-papers. Yellow dust-jacket printed in red and black.
Published 6 April 1933 at 3s. 6d.; 2031 sets of sheets printed (of which 300 were used for the American issue and 720 were bombed during the Second World War). On verso of title-leaf: First published in April MCMXXXIII . . . Printed in Great Britain by R. MACLEHOSE and Company Limited The University Press Glasgow...
“The aim of this brochure is to express the fundamentals of economics so simply and clearly that even people of different economic schools and factions will be able to understand each other when they discuss them.” (Prefatory note, p. 7)
“Mr Ezra Pound was asked to deliver ten lectures in an Italian university—on economics, not on the mummified muses. This is his necessary evisceration and clarification of the subject; a concise introduction to ‘volitionist economics.” (Dust-jacket) The lectures referred to, announced as “An Historic Background for Economics,” were given at the Universita Commerciale Luigi Bocconi, Milan, 21-31 March 1933—see E1d.
Note: Extensive quotations from pages 14-25 of ABC of Economics were used almost verbatim, with Ezra Pound’s approval but without acknowledgment of their source, ina novel by Graham Seton (pseudonym of Graham Seton Hutchinson) entitled Blood Money, first published in 1934 in London by Hutchinson and Co. The passages occur towards the end of the novel, particularly on pages 280-3 of the first edition.
b. American issue ([1940])
Ezra Pound | ABC OF ECONOMICS | NEW DIRECTIONS | Norfolk, Conn. [ James Laughlin]
19 x 12.5 cm. Blue cloth boards, with white paper label printed in black down the spine; end-papers. Light blue dust-jacket printed in dark blue and black.
Published 9 March 1940 at $2.00; 300 sets of the first-edition sheets, with a cancel title-leaf (with title-page as above), were imported by New Directions and bound and jacketed for sale in the United States. On verso of title-leaf: ... Printed in England
c. Second edition ([1953])
[In red:] ABC | OF | ECONOMICS | [in black:] by | EZRA POUND | PETER RUSSELL | THE POUND PRESS [Tunbridge Wells]
1 blank leaf, 2 leaves, 7-74 pp., 1 blank leaf, 21.5 x 14.3 cm. Blue cloth boards stamped in black (one copy in gold) up the spine; end-papers. Cream dustjacket printed in black. (Later copies are bound in heavy cream paper wrappers printed in black.)
Published May 1953 at 10s. 6d.3 2000 sets of sheets were printed (of which the first 250 were bound in cloth and later lots in paper wrappers; a later impression—circa 1959?—has publisher’s advertisements on pages [75-76], which are blank in the first impression). On verso of title-leaf: First edition published in 1933. This second edition is printed and published by the Pound Press, Tunbridge Wells, England, in May 1953.
A reprint save for the “Editor’s notes for New Edition,” p. 74. The publisher states that these notes were supplied by Ezra Pound.
Content is now editable.