Indian Currency and Finance was Keynes's first book, published in 1913. The background to Keynes's interest in Indian currency problems, acquired during his service in the India Office from 1906 to 1908, will be found in volume xv of this edition of The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes. His concern with these problems led to his appointment to the Royal Commission (1913) on Indian Finance and Currency. His contributions to the discussions of that Commission and to the form and content of its report will also be found in that volume.

The text of this volume is unchanged from that of the original edition as reprinted in 1924. It departs from that text only in a less lavish use of capitals than Messrs Macmillans' printers adopted in 1913, and in the addition of a few names to the index prepared for it by his father, John Neville Keynes (vol. xv), who in this capacity would appear to have been more well intentioned than systematic.

One addition has been made. It was natural that Keynes should assume a familiarity in those for whom he was writing with the identities and responsibilities of those chiefly concerned in the problems of Indian finance. To help a later generation to which many of these names are quite unknown, we have added a very short list of biographical notes on the principal dramatis personae.