ABSTRACT
The main text of the three-volume fifth edition of the Essay on Population was essentially the same as that reprinted by the Everyman Library; the addenda of 1826 are not very important. In his preface to the fifth edition, dated 7 June 1817, Malthus wrote:
This Essay was first published at a period of extensive warfare, combined, from peculiar circumstances, with a most prosperous foreign commerce.
It came before the public, therefore, at a time when there would be an extraordinary demand for men, and very little disposition to suppose the possibility of any evil arising from the redundancy of population. Its success, under these disadvantages, was greater than could have been reasonably expected; and it may be presumed that it will not lose its interest, after a period of a different description has succeeded, which has in the most marked manner illustrated its principles and confirmed its conclusions.
