The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions

New York: Macmillan Company, 1899. Very Good. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1899. First Edition. Octavo; publisher's dark green cloth, top edge gilt, gilt-lettered spine; viii,400,[2]pp. Spine ends and corners a bit rubbed with brief fraying to former, spine slightly cocked and front hinge discreetly reinforced, contemporary Sydney bookseller ticket to front pastedown and contemporary rubberstamp of a public free library council on pp. 5 and 25 (otherwise free of any library markings), some very brief scattered soil to textblock. A Very Good and sound example.

The first book of the American nonconformist enfant terrible Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929) published when the author, the son of Norwegian-born farmer emigres, was a lowly lecturer at the University of Chicago. The work, an examination of the effect of wealth and class on social structures and behavior, was an overnight success, introducing into the Gilded Age zeitgeist the concepts of both "conspicuous consumption" and "conspicuous leisure."

Further reading: Robert L. Heilbroner, "The Worldly Philosophers.