Editorial Foreword

Summary

This volume, one of three dealing with Keynes's more academic writing, forms a companion volume to A Treatise on Money and The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. In it appear his related articles, memoranda, correspondence with other economists and what survives in the form of drafts connected with his activities as an academic monetary economist between 1924 and 1939.

The material for this volume comes from the papers he kept from the period concerned, from his published contributions to journals and books, from the correspondence retained by his contemporaries. In this connection, we should like to thank Sir Ralph Hawtrey, the late Professor Sir Dennis Robertson in his lifetime and subsequently his executor Professor S. R. Dennison, Joan Robinson, Mr P. Sraffa, Professors J. E. Meade, Sir John Hicks, B. Ohlin, F. A. von Hayek, D. G. Champernowne, W. B. Reddaway and N. Kaldor for their assistance in preparing this volume. They have provided us with correspondence and with memories that have helped to shape this material.

It has been necessary, in order to make this material intelligible to a generation which did not live through the events and may be unfamiliar with some of the personalities and issues involved, to provide a minimum of factual background. We have tried to make this background sufficient for clarity and ease of use, but neither obtrusive nor argumentative. The purpose has been to provide the material from which the reader can form his own judgment rather than to impose the judgment of the editor.