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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PIECK, Henri C.
10 Dagen Die De Wereld Deden Wankelen.
Amsterdam, Skovino, 1927.
A rare lithograph of Pieck’s dramatic illustration for Ten Days that Shook the World (October in English), a silent film commissioned by the Soviet government to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the October Revolution. Made by the director of Battleship Potemkin (1925), Sergei Eisenstein, the...
£300
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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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[LOO, Pieter van, (attributed).]
156 watercolours of flowers, plants, and fruits.
[Holland, c. 1760–80].
A truly stunning collection of over 150 original eighteenth-century botanical watercolours, attributed to the noted Dutch botanical artist Pieter van Loo (1731–1784).
£110000
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BOLAÑO, Roberto.
2666.
Barcelona, Editorial Anagrama, [2004].
First edition of the Chilean writer’s last novel, the major preoccupation of the last five years of his life.
£500
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[LAW, John.]
Abbildung des auf der Strasse Quincampoix in Paris entstandenen so berühmten Actien-Handel. Excudit C. Weigel nach...
[1720.]
This engraving is a German version of ‘Rue Quinquempoix en l'Année 1720’(BM Catalogue 1655). It gives a view, in angular perspective, of the Rue Quinquempoix, Paris, with crowds of persons assembled there during the share mania of the Mississippi, South Sea, and other schemes which bubbled in the...
£1250
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KRUG, Leopold.
Abriss der Staatsökonomie oder Staatswirtschaftslehre.
Berlin, Realschulbuchhandlung, 1808.
Rare first edition. Krug was a civil servant whose writings on political economy and statistics had to be carved out of ‘the odd spare hour’. From 1805 to 1834 he was heavily involved in the development and expansion of the Prussian Statistical Bureau, during which time he conducted numerous statistical...
£350
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[AQUHORTIES.]
Abstract of the Rules and Regulations for the Students in the College of Aquhorties …
Edinburgh, Printed by J. Moir, Paterson’s Court, [1799?].
Broadside rules for the newly established Aquhorties College, the only Roman Catholic college in Scotland, presumably designed to be posted up around the school.
£850
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VINCENS, Jean Alexandre.
Account book.
Nimes, France, 1783-1800.
A unique record of the financial transactions and business dealings of a leading Protestant family of bankers and merchants in Nîmes, in the south of France, prior to and during the French Revolution, covering the period between May 1783 and Fructidor year VIII i.e. 1800.
£4250
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KEATE, George.
An Account of the Pelew Islands, situated in the western part of the Pacific Ocean: composed from the journals...
Dublin, Luke White, 1788.
First Dublin edition of this popular work, first published in London earlier the same year, by the virtuoso George Keate, member of the Royal Society and Society of Antiquities (1729−1797).
£650
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[BANK OF SCOTLAND.]
Act of Parliament for erecting a bank in Scotland. Edinburgh, July 17 1695.
Edinburgh, printed by the heirs and successors of Andrew Anderson, 1695.
Very rare edition of the Act of Parliament establishing Scotland’s first and oldest bank, founded just one year after the Bank of England.
£650
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[TRADE AND EXCISE].
An Additional Act for the better improvement and advancing the receipts of the Excise and New-Impost. At the...
London, Henry Hills and Iohn Field, Printers to His Highness, 1657.
First edition. The most substantial part of the Act, entitled ‘A Book of Values of Merchandize imported, according to which, excize is to be paid by the first buyer’, includes a forty-page alphabetical list of imported commodities, each recorded with the respective payable duty.
£250
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HOPKINS, William.
Address delivered at the Hull Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, September...
London, Taylor & Francis, 1853.
First edition, an 1853 Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science by its President William Hopkins (1793–1866), inscribed by the author and given to his erstwhile student Francis Galton (1822–1911). A mathematician and geologist, Hopkins became President of the British...
£350
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PATON, Joseph Noel, Sir.
Address read at the Delivery of the Prizes to the Students of the School of the Honourable the...
[London, Clay & Sons, 1875].
Presentation copies of two very rare academic addresses, that by Sir Noel Paton (one of 20 copies printed according to a note on the title-page) inscribed ‘John Skelton Esq., with N.P.’s kindest regards’, the Tulloch with a slip inscribed ‘From the Author’ tipped in.
£350
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[FIELDING, Sarah.]
The adventures of David Simple: containing an account of his travels through the cities of London and Westminster,...
London, printed for A. Millar, 1744.
First edition, very fine. The first and most popular novel of Sarah, the sister of Henry Fielding, who was to provide a preface and a few revisions to the second edition.
£1500
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BUXTON, Thomas Fowell.
The African Slave Trade and its Remedy …
London, John Murray, 1840.
First complete edition of the principal anti-slavery work of the politician and abolitionist Thomas Fowell Buxton (1786–1845), a presentation copy to a fellow abolitionist, James Pearson, dated 5 November 1840.
£750
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SOPHOCLES.
Aiax flagellifer. Callimachi Cyrenaei Hymni in Iovem & Apollinem. Ioanne Lonicero interprete. Genetliacon divo...
Basel, [Johann] Herwagen, August 1533.
First separate edition of Sophocles’s Ajax, with a facing Latin version by humanist philologist and theologian Johann Lonitzer (c. 1499–1569), printed with his translation of Callimachus’s hymns to Apollo and Zeus and his ode celebrating the birth of the future Wilhelm IV of Hesse-Kassel...
£2750
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MILL, John Stuart, and Jánosi FERENCZ (translator).
A képviseleti kormány.
Pest, Emich Gusztáv Tulajdona, 1867.
First Hungarian edition of Considerations on representative Government, Mill’s most important political work after On Liberty. In his major work on political institutions Mill ‘discusses to what extent forms of government are a matter of choice, the criterion of a “good form of government”, and...
£875
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[FRIENDSHIP ALBUM.]
Album of poetry and prose with watercolour illustrations.
[London, c. 1824–1832.]
An attractive nineteenth-century album collecting poems (many of Scottish, Irish, and Nonconformist interest) and hymns, along with several charming drawings in pencil and ink, with ties to several London families.
£1200
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[HEMSTERHUIS, François.]
Alexis ou de l’age d’or.
Riga, Johann Friedrich Hartknoch, 1787.
First edition of Hemsterhuis’s philosophical dialogue on a ‘golden age’, an influential work of pre-Romantic aesthetics.
£375
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ROSINI, Giovanni.
Alla memoria di Maria Antinori vedova del Marchese Consalvi di Macerata morta improvvisamente la sera del XIV...
Pisa, Niccolò Capurro, 1852.
Scarce first and only edition of this poem in memory of Maria Antinori, widow of the Marchese Consalvi, on her death at the age of thirty-five, penned by the poet, playwright, historical novelist, art historian, and art collector Giovanni Rosini (1776–1855), this copy presented by the author to...
£275