2 Adam Smith first editions are documented on this shelf, from The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) to An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) across 2 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Adam Smith title from later printings and book-club copies — the publisher and year to expect, the number-line or edition-statement conventions, and the tells that show up in online listings.

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The Theory of Moral Sentiments — 1759 · Printed for A. Millar, London; and A. Kincaid and J. Bell, EdinburghOne volume, thick octavo (c. 202 × 123 mm), published April 1759 in a recorded edition of 1,000 copies. The imprint reads 'Printed for A. Millar, in the Strand; and A. Kincaid and J. Bell, in Edinburgh. MDCCLIX.' — the Edinburgh names are an integral part of the first-edition imprint, not a later addition. Collation: [xii], 551, [1] errata. The key point is a pagination anomaly that regularly misleads buyers into…. The census claim is correct as to the 1759 Millar first, but the imprint is joint — London (Millar) and Edinburgh (Kincaid and Bell) — and a description naming Millar alone is incomplete. The work was written and first published in English in London, so no UK/US or original-language precedence question arises; American printings are much later and are not collected as firsts. The real precedence trap is internal…. No book-club editions for a 1759 title. The most reliable tell is where the title-page stops: the first edition's title-page ends at 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments'. From the third edition (1767) onward, the title-page and contents add 'To which is added a Dissertation on the Origin of Languages' — Smith's 'Considerations concerning the First Formation of Languages', which had first appeared separately in The….
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations — 1776 · W. Strahan and T. Cadell, LondonTwo quarto volumes (about 264 x 216 mm), London: printed for W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1776, published 9 March 1776. The first edition carries no edition statement on the title page; the corrected third edition of 1784 and all later London editions state their edition, which is the fastest first screen. A half-title was issued in volume II only - none was printed for volume I, so its absence there is not a defect…. London is the true first - Smith wrote in English and Strahan and Cadell printed it; there is no earlier foreign or original-language edition. The first American edition is Philadelphia: printed for Thomas Dobson, 1789, three volumes octavo, reprinted from the fourth London edition (Evans 31196); it is a separate Americana collecting point, not the first, and note that Dobson's set is the first American edition…. No book-club issue exists for an eighteenth-century quarto. Reprint tells are format and imprint: the first is a two-volume quarto printed for W. Strahan and T. Cadell, London, 1776. The common traps are the many later octavo London editions in three volumes (from the 1784 third edition onward, all with edition statements), Dublin and other non-London imprints, and Dobson's 1789 Philadelphia octavos.

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