Magens (Nicholas) An Essay on Insurances, explaining the Nature of the various Kinds of Insurance practised by the different Commercial States of Europe..., 2 vol., first edition in English, vol.1 lacking final blank & vol.2 initial & final blanks, pagination of pp.433-466 in vol.2 corrected by pasted-over printed slips, some foxing, ex-library copy with ink stamp to titles & a few other leaves, also bookplate and gilt stamps to boards, contemporary calf, rebacked, repairs to corners and edges, rubbed, new endpapers, [Goldsmiths' 9045; Higgs 975; Kress 5453], 4to, by J. Haberkorn [for] W. Baker, 1755.

⁂ Magens settled in London in the early 1700s, where he became an insurance trader and director of the London Assurance Company. His Essay on Insurances is a much amended and expanded translation of his Versuch uber Assecuranzen, Hamburg, 1753, produced because of the lack of any work on mercantile and maritime insurance in England. Adam Smith quotes him with respect (as "Mr Meggens") in Wealth of Nations and he owned a copy of Magens's explanations to his well-known Universal Merchant.