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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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  1. [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

  2. [LOQUET, Marie-Françoise].

    Voyage de Sophie et d’Eulalie, au Palais du vrai bonheur; ouvrage pour servir de guide dans les voies...

    Paris, Charles-Pierre Berton, 1781.

    First edition of this rare utopian voyage written by a woman for a readership of women.

    £1500

  3. [LORD LEYCESTER HOSPITAL, WARWICK.]

    Account of the Charity of Leicester’s Hospital. Its Foundation & Endowment, Government, Former...

    Warwick, mid-nineteenth century.

    A manuscript copy of the sixteenth-century statues of the Lord Leycester Hospital, an almshouse founded by Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, for impoverished or ageing former soldiers wounded in service.

    £350

  4. [LOUIS XIV.]

    L’oraison funebre de tres-haute, tres-excellente et tres-puissante princesse monarchie universelle. Prononcée le...

    ‘Cologne’, s.n., ‘1705’ [1704].

    Sole edition, very rare and virtually unstudied, of ‘one of the most curious and violent pamphlets published against Louis XIV’ (Pelissier, trans.).

    £1250

  5. LOWER RATES.

    No. 7. Bankers cause War.

    London, United ratepayers’ advisory association [1930s].

    First and only edition. An authentic copy of the Fascist-sponsored newspaper ‘Lower Rates’, a rare survival from the heyday of Oswald Mosley. Under the headline ‘Bankers cause War’ we see bankers accused of creating all the problems of society, including war-mongering and creating artificial credit.

    £130

  6. LUCRETIUS. 

    Titi Lucretii Cari de rerum natura libri VI.  Ad optimorum exemplarium veritatem exacti.  Quae praeterea in hac...

    Padua, Giuseppe Comino [for Volpi], 2 January 1721. 

    First Volpi–Comino edition of Lucretius’s famous materialist and Epicurean poem, the most notable Italian edition of the eighteenth century.  The present work is the product of the long-running and fruitful collaboration between the printer Giuseppe Comino and the scholars Giovanni Antonio...

    £450

  7. [LUXATION.]

    Sammelband of twenty-six works on dislocation.

    France, Germany, Italy, 1803–1882.

    A collection of twenty-six rare works relating to luxations, all once in the library of the Société de Chirurgie of Paris, several presented by their authors, and very few present in UK or US libraries.

    £750

  8. [LUZAC, Elie, attributed].

    L’homme plus que machine.

    ‘A Londres’ [Leiden?], 1748.

    First edition of this attack against materialism and La Mettrie’s L’homme machine, published in the same year. The work was included in the 1774 edition of the Oeuvres of La Mettrie, volume III.

    £250

  9. [MABBUT, George].

    Sir Isaac Newton’s tables for renewing and purchasing the leases of cathedral-churches and colleges, according...

    London, printed for Thomas Astley, 1742

    Sixth edition, first published in 1686, this issue was sometimes also published with a separate title page and imprint reading, ‘The money’d man’s pocket-book’, London, 1742’ immediately preceding the title-page of the second part. A series of tables calculating the amounts owed on leases based...

    £125

  10. MACAULEY, Auley.

    A Sermon on the peculiar Advantages of Sunday Schools: preached in the Parish Church of St. Paul, Bedford, on...

    London, Printed for C. Dilly … and sold by the Booksellers of Bedford, Northampton, and Leicester, for the Benefit of the Institution. [1792].

    First edition of a rare sermon to promote Sunday Schools by the uncle of Thomas Babington Macaulay and brother of the abolitionist Zachary Macaulay.

    £250

  11. [MACEDO, José Agostino de, editor].

    Jornal encyclopédico de Lisboa, coordenado pelo P. J. A. de M. Tomo primeiro [-segundo].

    Nos 1-12 (Janiero – Dezembro de 1820). Lisboa, impressão Regia, 1820.

    First edition, complete, of this rare periodical, edited and in large part written by the prolific writer, pamphleteer, court preacher, and controversialist José Agostoni de Macedo (1761-1831).

    £1250

  12. [MACKENZIE, Lieutenant-Colonel George, and others, defendants.]

    The Trial, before the High Court of Justiciary in Scotland, at...

    Aberdeen: Printed by J. Burnett ... for C. and J. Robinson, London [and stationers in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Banff, Elgin, and Inverness], 1803.

    Sole edition. This controversial trial was brought as a private prosecution after the Lord Advocate, Charles Hope, had decided not to prosecute any officers or soldiers for killing four peaceable inhabitants of Aberdeen after celebrations of the King’s birthday on 4 June 1802 had got out of control....

    £150

  13. MADDOX, Isaac.

    A Sermon preach’d in the Parish-Church of Christ-Church, London; on Thursday April the 30th, 1741 being the Time...

    London, M. Downing, 1741.

    First edition, containing the often-lacking second part of the work, providing a tabular account of the charity schools in and around London and Westminster in 1741.

    £650

  14. [MAGDALEN CHAPEL.]

    The Hymns, Anthems & Tunes with the Ode used at the Magdalen Chapel set for the Organ, Harpsichord, Voice, German-Flute,...

    London, Printed for C. and S. Thompson … [1770?]

    First edition thus, very rare, of this Magdalen Chapel Hymnbook, with a total of thirty-eight tunes: twenty-four hymns, three anthems, nine psalms, ‘The Wish’ and ‘The Ode’.

    £1750

  15. MAGNA CARTA.

    Magna Charta: or, the Great Charter of King John; to which are added, the Declaration of the Estates of the Kingdom...

    Glasgow: Printed by E. Miller. Sold by James Duncan, Junr. James Steel, and Walter Duncan, Booksellers. [c. 1810]

    First edition thus, rare. COPAC and OCLC show Glasgow only.

    £75

  16. MAINE DE BIRAN. [MARIE FRANÇOIS PIERRE GONTHIER DE BIRAN.]

    Influence de l’Habitude sur la Faculté de Penser.

    Paris, Henrichs, 1803.

    First edition of Maine de Biran’s first major work, in which he draws a distinction between what he calls passive habits, i.e. sensations and impressions which become dulled with repetition, and active habits, i.e. those which are conscious, and willed. “The effect of this, which was borne out by...

    £2000

  17. MAKERETI (Maggie PAPAKURA).

    The old-time Maori … Collected and edited with a Biography by T.K. Penniman …

    London, Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1938.

    First edition, scarce, with a gift inscription: ‘To D.G. Bridson, In sincere appreciation of his kindness and trustfulness in lending me – a stranger – the script of his fascinating broadcast on the Maoris. W.S. Wrestier[?]’.

    £125

  18. MALCOLM, Alexander.

    A Treatise of Musick, speculative, practical and historical. Containing an explication of the philosophical...

    London, J. Osborn and T. Longman, F. Fayram, and E. Symon, 1730.

    First London edition of the first history of music in English by a British author; it is a reissue of the Edinburgh-printed first edition of 1721 with a cancel title-page and the dedication removed.

    £1100

  19. MALTHUS, Thomas Robert.

    Principles of political economy considered with a view to their practical application.

    London, Murray, 1820.

    First edition. The Principles were developed through controversy with Ricardo, especially with regard to the theory of value, but the origins of the essay are in the Essay, which constituted Malthus’s earliest writings on prices, income and savings. The difference that emerges between...

    £1400

  20. [MALTHUS, Thomas Robert].

    Art. I - Essay on Political Economy. Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Vol. VI. Part I. Edinburgh....

    The Quarterly Review Vol. XXX No. LX, January 1824, pp. 298-334.

    First edition. A review by Thomas Malthus of John Ramsay McCulloch’s famous essay on political economy.

    £100