ABSTRACT
It is an exercise in empathy to appreciate the quasi-biblical character of the Wealth of Nations during Malthus's life-time. Cadell and Davies, after Playfair's edition of 1805, about which they consulted Malthus, had brought out another Wealth of Nations in 1812, without notes; it was in three volumes, contained a brief anonymous life of Smith, and ‘A Short View of the Doctrine of Adam Smith as compared with that of the French Economists by Germain Garnier’. Malthus had bought a copy of Garnier's annotated French translation of the Wealth of Nations when he was in Paris in 1802. Cadell and Davies had also published, in 1810, ‘the compleat edition’ of all Smith's works (now almost forgotten) with a biography by Dugald Stewart.
