Human Sciences
Contact Jonathan Harrison, Alfred Pasternack or Barbara Scalvini
Human Sciences at Quaritch embraces a wide range of books and manuscripts documenting the history of ideas from the earliest times up to about 1960. Our strengths are in the history of economic thought and in philosophy, but we also deal in law; finance and banking (including speculation, actuarial science and insurance); politics and political theory; sociology; psychology; agriculture; education; logic; and the theory of language.
Some notable items which have recently passed through our hands include the only known copy of the Communist Manifesto inscribed by Karl Marx, Rudolf Carnap’s annotated copy of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung), Joseph Penso de la Vega’s Confusion de Confusiones (1688, the first book to describe the practice of a stock-exchange) and a copy of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (4th edition, 1786), inscribed in Smith's own hand to Bonnie Prince Charlie's private secretary.
As well as dealing in individual books and manuscripts, we also offer collections. In recent years we have sold author collections of Friedrich Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell, Thorstein Veblen, Emile Durkheim and Jeremy Bentham. Among subject collections we have offered are the Herwood Library of accounting literature (including Pacioli's Summa de Arithmetica, 1494, the first printed exposition of double-entry book-keeping); the philosophy of language; texts pertaining to the theory and study of language in the West, and the history of probability - the calculus of probabilities, statistics and their applications.
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[ABC.]
Alphabet mythologique.
[Paris,] lith. Durand, Ligny Jne. et Cie, [1840s?].
A delightful and extremely rare ABC depicting figures from Greek and Roman mythology, alongside the Hindu river goddess Yamuna for the letter Y.
£2500
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[ABC.]
Petite géographie amusante abécédaire nouveau offrant pour chaque lettre de l’alphabet une carte coloriée avec l’explication...
C. Lehuby, ‘Librairie de l’enfance et de la jeunesse’, [1851].
A charming and very rare ABC intended to teach children European geography, from A for Allemagne to Z for Zara in Dalmatia, published just a few years after the upheavals of the revolutions of 1848.
£3750
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[AGRIPPA, Heinrich Cornelius.]
De la grandeur et de l’excellence des femmes, au dessus des hommes. Ouvrage composé en Latin,...
Paris, François Baruty, 1713.
The third translation into French, but the first in the eighteenth century, of this work in praise of the female sex by the German occultist, lawyer, and soldier Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486–1535).
£650
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AINSWORTH, William Harrison.
The Combat of the Thirty. From a Breton Lay of the fourteenth Century. With an Introduction, comprising...
London: Chapman and Hall … 1859
First edition of the first English translations of these two texts, inscribed to ‘James Crossley from his old friend William Harrison Ainsworth’. The two men had been friends since 1817 when Crossley, a solicitor, was articled to Ainsworth’s father and later became a partner in the firm. He was...
£550
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ALABASTER, William.
Roxana tragaedia olim Cantabrigiae, acta in Col. Trin. Nunc primum in lucem edita.
London, R. Badger for Andrew Crook, 1632.
The pirated first edition (the first authorized text followed later in the same year) of a neo-Latin verse drama in the manner of Seneca, by one of the foremost Latinists of his day.
£1500
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ALBERTI, Leon Battista.
El Momo. La moral e muy graciosa historia del Momo; compuesta en Latin por el docto varon Leon Bapista...
Alcalá de Henares, Joan Mey Flandro, 1553.
First edition in Spanish of Alberti’s Momus [or De principe], translated by Augustín de Almaçan and with an introductory 8-page Exposición by the Toledo ascetic writer and scholar Alejo Venegas (1495?–1554?).
£3800
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ALBERTI, Rafael.
13 Bandas y 48 estrellas. Poema del Mar Caribe.
Madrid, Manuel Altolaguirre, 1936.
First edition. ‘The thirteen poems collected in 13 bandas y 48 estrellas, first published in 1936 and later recollected in part 3 of De un momento a otro, are songs of protest against, and critical evaluations of, the role of “el imperialismo yanki”, “la diplomacia del horror”, and “la...
£650
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ALLAIS, Maurice Félix Charles.
The hereditary and relativistic formulation of the demand for money: circular reasoning or a real...
June 1975.
The Nobel Prize economist Allais obtained the most prestigious of commendations for his pioneering contributions to the theory of markets and efficient utilization of resources. In this paper Allais takes issue with a note by J.L. Scadding, published in the same journal in March 1972, ‘on various aspects...
£100
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ALMEIDA, Theodoro de.
Lisboa destruida poema, author o P. Theodoro de Almeida, da Congregaçaõ do Oratorio de Lisboa.
Lisbon, Antonio Rodrigues Galhardo, 1803.
First edition of this poem in six cantos, with extensive notes, on the disastrous 1755 Lisbon earthquake, by the Oratorian priest and philosopher Almeida (1722-1804). One of the deadliest in history, the earthquake almost totally destroyed the Portuguese capital and accentuated political tensions within...
£175
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ALVAREZ DE ARENALES, Jose.
Noticias historicas y descriptivas sobre el gran pais del Chaco y Rio Bermejo; con observaciones relativas...
Montevideo, [Imprenta del Comercio del Plata], 1850.
Rare second edition, after the first of 1833, of this analysis of the Chaco and Rio Bermejo regions of Paraguay, divided into three sections. The first covers the geography, population and natural history of the area, the second relates the conquest of Paraguay and Peru, containing extracts from various...
£100
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AMBROSE of Milan, AUGUSTINE, and HIERONYMUS.
De virginitate opuscula Sanctorum doctorum, Ambrosii, Hieronymi et Augustini....
Rome, Paolo Manuzio, 1563.
Four first editions from Paolo Manuzio’s Roman press of Latin and Greek patristic texts on virginity, bound together at an early stage and annotated by Bernardino Pino, a cleric, courtier, dramatist, and humanist at the court of the Duke of Urbino.
£4000
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ANDREADES, Andreas Michael.
De la monnaie et de la puissance d’achat des métaux précieux dans l’Empire Byzantin . . . Extrait...
Liège, Imprimerie H. Vaillant-Carmanne, 1924.
An offprint, with its own title-page and pagination, of this important study. This is a presentation copy, inscribed in ink ‘To Robert Byron. A. A.’ at the head of the front wrapper. Andreades was the first professor of public finance at the University of Athens and the author of a monumental work...
£45
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ANDREUCCI, Andrea Girolamo.
De vicariis basilicarum urbis tractatus Canonico-Theologicus.
Rome, typis Antonii de Rubeis in via Seminarii Romani prope Rotundam, 1744.
First edition, rare, of Andreucci’s treatise of the juridical and hierarchical prerogatives of the prelates of the basilicae. It was to be reprinted twenty years later as part of the author’s work on ecclesiastical hierarchies.
£250
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ANGELL, Sir Norman.
The money game.
London, J.M. Dent, [n.d.].
Early edition of this ‘new instrument in economic education’. This unusual, yet educational game combines strategy and economics to provide a little-known, but deeply rewarding alternative to Monopoly. ‘The Money Game’ aims to teach players the principles of economics, including the mechanisms...
£100
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[ANGLO-SOVIET DIPLOMACY.]
Papers regarding the Anglo-Soviet Negotiations 1939. Presented by the Secretary of State for Foreign...
London, His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1939.
A proof copy, complete with typed errata attached, of this collection of ninety-five papers relating to the negotiations between the Soviet and British governments between March and December 1939.
£750
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[ANON.]
Le moine galant, ou la vie de Don F… Bernardin, ecrite par lui-même.
[S.l., s.n.,] 1756.
Scarce first edition of this satirical ‘autobiography’ of a pleasure-driven law student turned monk, replete with amorous adventures.
£450
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ANSWER OF THE MERCHANTS-PETITIONERS,
and Trustees for the Factory at Legorn, to the Account of Damages, laid to the Charge of the...
London: Printed in the Year 1704.
First and only edition, scarce, part of a fascinating trade (and piracy) dispute involving English merchants in Livorno (or Leghorn), which brought England and Tuscany to the brink of war in 1704.
£1350
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ANTONIUS de Vercellis.
Sermones quadragesimales de XII mirabilibus Christianae fidei excellentiis [with additions by Ludovicus...
Venice, Johannes and Gregorius de Gregoriis, de Forlivio, [for Alexander Calcedonius], 16 February 1492/93.
A remarkable copy of the first edition of Antonius de Vercellis’ sermons, owned and annotated by three contemporary Franciscans, one of whom, Andrea Alamanni, may be the confessor who administered Machiavelli’s last rites.
£8500
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ANTWERP, William C. van.
The Stock Exchange from Within. Illustrated from photographs.
New York, Doubleday, Page & Company, 1913.
First edition of this historical account of the New York Stock Exchange.
£50
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APULEIUS, Lucius.
L. Apuleii Metamorphoseos, sive lusus Asini libri XI. Floridoru[m] IIII. De deo Socratis I. De philosophia...
Venice, ‘in aedibus Aldi et Andreae Soceri’, May 1521.
First Aldine edition of the works of the second-century AD Numidian novelist Apuleius, with the editio princeps of Alcinous’s second-century handbook on Plato’s philosophy in the original Greek, from the library of the great French writer Victor Hugo.
£2000