Reviews [1987, Vol. 14, no. 2]

              The Accounting Historians Journal Vol. 14, No. 2 Fall 1987
REVIEWS
BARBARA D. MERINO, EDITOR North Texas State University
REVIEW ESSAY
SOME EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ACCOUNTING TREATISES
Reviewed By George J. Murphy University of Saskatchewan
Malcolm, Alexander. A Treatise of Bookkeeping or Merchants Accounts in the Italian Method of Debtor and Creditor (Lon-don, 1731. Reprint ed., New York: Garland Press, 1986, 264 pp., $40.00).
Mair, John. Bookkeeping Modernized or Merchant Accounts by Double Entry (Edinburgh, 1793. Reprint ed., New York: Arno Press, 1978, pp., $36.00). Mitchell, William. A New and Complete System of Bookkeeping By An Improved Method of Double Entry (Philadelphia, 1796. Reprint ed., New York: Arno Press, 1978, 450 pp., $26.00).
The accounting treatises of Malcolm [17311, Mair [1768]1 and Mitchell [1796] span most of the eighteenth century — the midcentury between Pacioli's famous work (1494) and the pre-sent time. They invite comparison with earlier and later ac-complishments, and with changes within that industrial-advent century itself. The Malcolm text is the first edition of two, the later being 1743. The Mair text is the sixth of nine editions spanning the years 1773 to 1807 with an earlier work running through eight editions from 1736 to 1767. The Mitchell text is a single edition and one of the earliest American treatises [Previts and Merino, 1979, p. 28; Sheldahl, 1985]. Malcolm and Mair are two of a notable group of Scottish authors of that era [Yamey et al., 1963, p. 172].
1Mair died in 1769, a year after he wrote this text. The actual edition of the text examined is the sixth, printed in 1793.