ABSTRACT
The present paper tells the story of the gestation of the General Index to Ricardo's Works. Its purpose is twofold. On the one hand, it is meant to ‘set the record straight’, that is, to dispel misconceptions and false ideas which seem to circulate among economists interested in the Cambridge tradition, based on so-called ‘oral tradition’, by providing a detailed chronological account of the General Index's gestation. This documentation can help to clarify why it took so long to compile the Index, and what was the extent and significance of the contributions made by Maurice Dobb, Arnold Heertje, Barbara Lowe and others to its completion. The paper's second aim is to provide some further biographical details on the later phase of Sraffa's life, and in particular to shed some light on his scholarly pre-occupations in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
