The Edinburgh Review. Numbr. 1. {To be Published every Six months} Containing an Account of all the Books and Pamphlets that have been published in Scotland from the first of January to the first of July 1755. To each Number will be added an Appendix, giving an Account of the Books published in England and other Countries, that are most worthy of notice. [And:] The Edinburgh Review, from July 1755 to January 1756. [Caption title]. [All published].

Notes

The complete run of this famously rare short-lived but enormously important Scottish Enlightenment periodical, containing not only what has been called 'a manifesto of the Scottish enlightenment' but also Adam Smith's first published works of philosophical interest - the review of Johnson's Dictionary in the appendix to no. 1 and the letter to the editor that concludes no. 2. Smith's first publication of any kind was his edition of the poems of William Hamilton in 1748, accompanied by a brief preface; his second, eight years later, established him as a rising star of the Scottish Enlightenment.
Smith's letter here, running to 17 pages, displays a breadth of interest and reading, taking in an overview of French philosophy and thought, including his thoughts on the Encyclopedie project of Diderot and the recently-published discourses of Rousseau, and comparing the state of French thought with that in England and Scotland. The review of the Dictionary is shorter and more constrained in its focus, but does represent the first published critical work of a giant of 18th-century economics and philosophy. Other contributors to the periodical include William Robertson, who contributes eight pieces mostly on historical subjects, and Hugh Blair, and its editor was Alexander Wedderburn, 1st Earl of Rosslyn, whose introduction to the project was called a manifesto by Mossner in his biography of Hume.
The importance of Smith's contributions, and the rarity of the pages in which they were published, were recognised early on: the 'Letter' was translated into French by Pierre Provost and published in his edition of the Essays on Philosophical Subjects in 1797, with a note that the original edition was rare and he expended significant effort in finding one to borrow. There was then a second English edition in 1818, the preface stating that the first has 'now become so rare that it is not to be found in the Libraries of some of the most curious Collectors'. This assessment is upheld by its minimal appearances on the market since: we have traced a copy of the first issue only in a Maggs catalogue of 1963, an example in modern half calf at Sotheby's in 1979, and Hume's copy in 1987 (described as 'a noted rarity' and unsold at £20-25,000); nothing further in the four decades since.