# Signaling Smith’s System through “By the Same Author” **URL:** **By** Caroline Breashears **Published:** January 25, 2023 --- Caroline Breashears explains the importance of Adam Smith’s unusual placement of the “published by the same author” page of _The Wealth of Nations_. Paratexts are materials on the borders of the text, such as the title page, epigraph, table of contents, and index. The kind of paratext that concerns us here is the “by the same author” list. We find something interesting about “by the same author” in the early editions of Adam Smith’s _The Wealth of Nations_. I show images from the first and second edition and address how they were intended to shape their interpretations of Smith’s works as a whole. This article is a riff on an article in _Economic Affairs_ by Dan Klein and me. Gérard Genette suggests that paratexts offer a “threshold” designed to ensure “a better reception for the text and a more pertinent reading of it” (1997, 2). While the list of works “by the same author” was a common paratext in Smith’s time, the placement in early editions of _The Wealth of Nations_ was unusual and goes beyond advertising Smith’s earlier publications. Specifically, in the editions published in 1776 and 1778, the author-works lists reinforce Smith’s overarching system across _The Theory of Moral Sentiments_, the essay on languages, and _The Wealth of Nations_. ## “Published by the same Author” As Genette observes, “the list of works ‘By the same author’ \[was\] generally placed at the beginning of the volume (facing the title page) or at the end” (1997, 99). In 1776, however, William Strahan and Thomas Cadell published the first edition of _The Wealth of Nations_ with the author-works list directly opposite the table of contents (Figure 1). Photograph of Wealth of Nations *Figure 1:_ The Wealth of Nations _(1776) _Image courtesy of St. Lawrence University Library_* This placement was uncommon, as shown by a methodical search in the database _Eighteenth-Century Collections Online_ (_ECCO_) focused on books published between 1759 and 1790 by “Strahan or Cadell” and including the phrase “by the same author.” Our search returned 160 books, all of which included an author-works list or a variation on it. The author-works list appears most commonly at the end of the book (91 of 160), and often before or on the title page (23 of the 160). Only three books, including Smith’s _The Wealth of Nations_ (1776), placed the author-works list directly opposite the table of contents. In these three instances, that list functions as an advertisement, but its placement also prepares readers to see connections between the author’s previous works and the new text. The placement of Smith’s author-works list signals that _The Wealth of Nations_ continues a system. As Figure 1 shows, Strahan and Cadell give the full titles of both _The Theory of Moral Sentiments_ and its appendix, _A Dissertation on the Origin of Language_. This list of works “Published by the same Author” establishes Smith’s expertise and invites readers to see _The Wealth of Nations_ (_WN_) as ongoing elaboration of a unified body of thought. _WN_ enlarges the Smithian outlook. In _The Enlightenment and the Book_ (2006), Richard Sher writes that for Scottish authors, the “union of text and paratext was crucial for their personal reputations as authors” (p. 194). Sher emphasizes the importance of “the coherence and authenticity of the public’s image of the author as an individual whose works were joined together to form a unified and immediately recognizable whole” (pp. 159-160). Ian Ross (2010, p. 286) also notes the placement, observing that Smith or his publisher wanted readers to remember he was the author of _The Theory of Moral Sentiments_. These goals—advertising Smith’s previous book and suggesting connections between the preceding works and the current one—extended to the second edition of _The Wealth of Nations_. In the 1778 edition, the placement of the author-works list moves to _after _the table of contents and opposite the start of Smith’s “Introduction and Plan of the Work,” as shown in Figure 2. Picture of text from The Wealth of Nations *Figure 2: Paratext from _The Wealth of Nations_ (1778) _Image courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, William \& Mary Libraries_* The placement in 1778 is more common than that of 1776: our search identified 23 other examples. These publications are, however, restricted to relatively few authors. In all examples, the list of the author’s previous publications establishes his expertise and an argumentative thread across books. The author-works list serves a similar purpose in Smith’s _The Wealth of Nations_ (1778), highlighting his interest in the principles of judgment (_TMS_) and the springs of exchange (the Language essay) emphasized in the Introduction to _WN_. Searching personal correspondence, we find no evidence that Smith or his publishers intended for readers to see these particular connections. Also, they did not sustain this unusual placement of “by the same author” in the other editions of _WN_ published during Smith’s lifetime.1 Yet if Smith’s goals were to draw readers to his latest book and emphasize its connection to _TMS_, then he and his publishers may have felt they had already succeeded in signaling the unity of Smith’s works. ## Connecting Smith’s Writings Modern editions of Smith’s works have eliminated the “by the same author” list. That is unfortunate, because that paratext in the first two editions of _WN_ suggests philosophical connections across three texts: 1. > The Language essay 2. > The full title of _The Theory of Moral Sentiments_ (_TMS_) 3. > _WN_ under the ethical umbrella of TMS.2 In reading Smith’s writings, our understanding of a part informs our understanding of the whole, while our understanding of the whole informs that of each part. The early _WN_ “by the same author” lists helped us see how the parts complement one another and form a profound whole. Smith’s Language essay first appeared in 1761 in _The Philological Miscellany_. The full title is “Considerations concerning the first formation of Languages, and the different genius of original and compounded Languages,” which appeared on the title page and in the table of contents from the third edition of _TMS_ (1767) and thereafter. The Language essay has extensive connections to both _TMS_ and _WN_. For instance, the appending of the Language essay to _TMS_ helps to make explicit deeper-evolution ideas that had been only implicit in _TMS_. In the Language essay, Smith writes: “The general rule would establish itself insensibly, and by slow degrees” (211). Such development parallels the spontaneous generation of proprieties in _TMS_. Indeed, language norms live in discourse, and discourse is a form of conduct, so language norms _are_ proprieties. In discoursing, one’s semantics and syntax can be praiseworthy or blameworthy, virtuous or vicious. Seeing the title of the Language essay opposite the table of contents of _WN_ (1776) also reinforces Smith’s understanding of connections across disciplines. Language not only develops “insensibly.” It is also, Smith hints, fundamental to trade. In _WN_, he refuses to name explicitly the origin of our “propensity to truck, barter, and exchange,” but he does suggest that it “seems more probable, it be the necessary consequence of the faculties of reason and speech” (25.2). Likewise, it is crucial to read _The Wealth of Nations_ in relation to _The Theory of Moral Sentiments_. _TMS_ is about seeing beauty and deformity in human conduct, or judging human conduct. _WN_ instructs us in properly judging the conduct of those who make government policy, those who pursue honest income, and those who pursue dishonest income through government-conferred privilege. Smith prepared readers for the content of _The Wealth of Nations_ at the end of early editions of _The Theory of Moral Sentiments_, where he looks forward to expounding on “the general principles which ought to run through and be the foundation of the laws of nations” (341.37). In his final edition of _TMS_ (1790), Smith returns to this promise in another piece of paratext, his Advertisement. In so doing, Smith reinforces his sense of his own _oeuvre_: > In the last paragraph of the first Edition of the present work, I said, that I should in another discourse endeavour to give an account of the general principles of law and government, and of the different revolutions which they had undergone in the different ages and periods of society; not only in what concerns justice, but in what concerns police, revenue, and arms, and whatever else is the object of law. In the _Enquiry concerning the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations_, I have partly executed this promise; at least so far as concerns police, revenue, and arms. What remains, the theory of jurisprudence, which I have long projected, I have hitherto been hindered from executing, by the same occupations which had till now prevented me from revising the present work. (3) The placement and the argument of this paratext reinforce our point about the significance of the paratextual materials in _WN_. ## Don’t Expect Too Much from Civilization The final words of the Language essay say that Latin’s conciseness, versification, and sweetness made perfection of beauty much more acquirable “than it can be to those whose expression is constantly confined by the prolixness, constraint, and monotony of modern languages” (226). These final words strike a dour note. Since the essay is an appendix which concludes _TMS_, that work itself ends on that dour note. This final phrase—“confined by the prolixness, constraint, and monotony of modern languages”—brings to mind the final words of _WN_, that Great Britain should “endeavour to accommodate her future views and designs to the real mediocrity of her circumstances” (_WN_, 947.92). Thus, Smith does not conclude with a zeal for progress. There is no promise of an integral, poetic life. In the Language essay, Smith explains, “mankind have learned by degrees to _split and divide_ almost every event into a great number of metaphysical parts, expressed by the different parts of speech, variously combined in the different members of every phrase and sentence” (1983, p. 217; emphasis added). Dividing and subdividing is a main theme in _WN_. It is a central point of the Language essay, and we may read it into the rest of _TMS_. With the Language essay appended to _TMS_, both of Smith’s two great works end on a dour note. Smith tended to presuppose that his readers enjoy stable, functional government. He counsels us to reform policy, if only gradually, in the direction of “the liberal plan” (_WN_ 664.3), for the alternatives are worse. The unity of Smith’s thought tends toward the prospect of peaceful enjoyment of our circumstances with a sober regard for neighbors. Even if one’s small life within the modern liberal commercial society feels monotonous, Smith’s conception of the common good in the modern world is not without its lustre. Seeing Smith’s paratextual materials, we recover some of the fullness of Smith’s outlook for human life in modern times. 1. Smith spent much of the years 1773 to 1777 in London, enabling in-person communication with his publishers and printers. We have zero correspondence to or from Strahan or Cadell from 1767 until after _WN_ was published in 1776. We know nothing of Smith’s instructions for _WN_’s printing and paratext in 1776 and 1778. 2. As Erik Matson (2022, 269-273) puts it, there are two major problems in the Glasgow edition of the _TMS_ volume. Both concern elements shown in Figure 1. One is the severing of the Language essay. The other is the failure to provide the full title of _TMS_ on the title-page of the _TMS_ volume—only in passing do the editors D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie provide the full title, on page 40 of their introduction. Raphael and Macfie do not explain why they made these changes. ## Endnotes Berry, Christopher J. 1974. Adam Smith’s Considerations on Language. _Journal of the History of Ideas_ 35(1): 130-138. Genette, Gerard. 1997. _Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation (Literature, Culture, Theory, Series Number 20)_, trans. Jane E. Lewin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Klein, Daniel B., and Caroline Breashears. 2022. By the Same Author: Presenting Adam Smith’s Works as a Whole. _Economic Affairs_ 42(3): 528-540. Matson, Erik W. 2022. God, Commerce, and Adam Smith through the Editions of The Theory of Moral Sentiments. _Journal of Markets \& Morality_ 24(2): 269-288. Ross, Ian Simpson. 2010. _The Life of Adam Smith_. Second edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sher, Richard B. 2006. _The Enlightenment and the Book: Scottish Authors and Their Publishers in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Ireland, and America_. University of Chicago Press. Smith, Adam. 1976 \[1776\]. _An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations_, eds. R.H. Campbell and A.S. Skinner. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1981. Smith, Adam. 1790. _The Theory of Moral Sentiments_, eds. D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976. Smith, Adam. 1977 (Corr.). _The Correspondence of Adam Smith_, eds. Ernest C. Mossner and Ian Simpson Ross. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Smith, Adam. 1983 (LRBL). _Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres_, ed. J. C. Bryce. Oxford: Clarendon Press.