ECONOMISTS' PAPERS:
Series One: The Papers of William Stanley Jevons, 1835-1882, from the John Rylands University Library of Manchester

Editorial Introduction

PREFACE TO THE MICROFILM EDITION OF THE PRIVATE PAPERS AND CORRESPONDENCE OF WILLIAM STANLEY JEVONS

William Stanley Jevons was one of the central figures in what has come to be known as the “The Marginal Revolution”, a watershed in the history of nineteenth century economic thought, marking the close of classical political economy and the beginning of modern marginalist economics. But he was much more than that. He was also an important philosopher of science, a pioneer in the theory of index numbers, a forerunner of the modern theory of real business cycles, a historian and stalwart defender of mathematical economics and a brilliant applied economist whose forecast of the decline of Britain’s industrial leadership and the rise of American economic power has lessons to teach even today. Above all, the sheer charm of the man and the multiplicity of his many intellectual interests (such as botany, meteorology, engineering and music besides economics and politics) is imperfectly conveyed by his published works and only comes across in his private papers and correspondence.

Professor Collinson Black provided a seven-volume edition of The Papers and Correspondence of William Stanley Jevons (Macmillan, 1972-81) some years ago but such a printed edition, besides being confined to materials bearing strictly on economics, is naturally constrained to exclude all sorts of items (rough notes, manuscript drafts, letters, family papers, photographs, watercolour drawings, etc…) which do contribute to a fuller understanding of Jevons’s life and thought. Hence, the need for a comprehensive microfilm edition of the entire Jevons Archives such as this one.

Students of the history of economic thought and indeed all historians of Victorian intellectual currents will find this an unusually rich source of insights into one of the pivotal figures of Victorian social science.

Mark Blaug

Professor Emeritus, University of London

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