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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. 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

  2. [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

  3. [MAGDALEN CHAPEL.]

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

    London, Printed for Longman and Broderip … [1780?].

    Two rare later editions of the Magdalen Chapel hymnbook.

    £2000

  4. 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

  5. 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

  6. 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

  7. 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

  8. 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

  9. [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

  10. MANLEY, Mrs. [Delarivier]. 

    The Power of Love: in seven Novels viz.  I. The fair Hypocrite.  II. The Physician’s Stratagem. ...

    London, Printed for John Barber … and John Morphew … 1720. 

    First edition, apparently a presentation copy, of Delarivier Manley’s last work of prose, a collection of seven amorous novellas partly derived from William Painter’s Palace of Pleasure (1566), ‘adding divers new Incidents’, and supplemented by several original compositions. Historically...

    £2500

  11. [MARABOTTA, Cattaneo.] 

    Vita della serafica S. Caterina da Genova. 

    Genoa, Tipografia Frugoni, 1832. 

    Rare first edition thus, an attractive nineteenth-century reprint of Marabotta’s biography of Saint Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510), first published in 1737, the date of her canonisation.  Catherine was known for her writings on mysticism and for her work with the poor and sick, notably during...

    £185

  12. MARCHESINI, Marcello.

    Saggio d’economia politica, o sia Riflessioni sullo spirito della legislazione relativamente all’agricoltura,...

    Napoli, Vincenzo Orsino, 1793.

    Very rare first and only edition of a book on economic and social policy by Marcello Marchesini, a scholar from Istria who, having been trained in Venice, took the chair of Political Economy in Naples after Genovesi. Marchesini declares in the title that his book should be regarded as a ‘Spirit of...

    £700

  13. [MARLBOROUGH, John Churchill, Duke of.]

    Tract volume of five rare works (three not in the British Library) relating to the...

    London, 1695–1706.

    The Hero of the Age, published December 1704 by the otherwise unknown Jasper Robins, is one of the rarest literary contributions to the national outpouring that accompanied the martial success of John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough, in the early years of the eighteenth century. It comprises...

    £3850

  14. MARSDEN, William, translator.

    Memoirs of a Malayan family, written by themselves, and translated from the original by W....

    London, printed for the Oriental Translation Fund, sold by J. Murray and Parbury, Allen & Co., 1830.

    First edition, Sir Thomas Phillipps’s copy, of Marsden’s translation of an account of the travels and trials of a Malayan family trading pepper in Java and Sumatra in the 1750s and 1760s, including their encounters with the Dutch and British East India Companies.

    £1250

  15. MARSHALL, Alfred.

    Official papers.

    London, Macmillan for the Royal Economic Society, 1926.

    First collected edition of all the written memoranda and oral evidence Marshall prepared on economic questions for government departments and official enquiries, with the exception of his work on the Labour Commission. The collection was edited by Keynes, who provides a preface: ‘generally speaking,...

    £150

  16. MARTINEAU, Harriet.

    British Rule in India; a historical Sketch …

    London: Smith, Elder and Co … 1857.

    First edition. Martineau wrote regularly for the Daily News from 1851-66, and produced nearly 1600 leaders in which she addessed international issues such as the American Civil War, and Britain’s position in the West Indies, Ireland and India. Her articles on India contributed to this work,...

    £150

  17. [MARTINI, Ferdinand].

    Breife. Aus dem Englischen übersetzt.

    Soröe 1768, gedruckt bey Jonas Lindgreen, Ritterlich Akademischer Buchdrucker.

    First edition of a rare, radical indictment of serfdom in Denmark, ostensibly ‘translated from the English’.

    £750

  18. MARX, Karl.

    W kwestii Żydowskiej.

    Warsaw, [“Monografia”] for Instytut Wydawniczy “Renaissance”, 1938.

    First edition to be printed in Poland, the second in Polish (first, London, 1896) of Marx’s controversial article Zur Judenfrage ('On the Jewish Question'), which appeared first in 1844 in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher.

    £280

  19. MARZAGLIA, Gaetano.

    Fascetto di pratiche matematiche spiegate alle persone popolari per uso del comercio umano, e civile, in questa...

    Verona, Dionisio Ramanzini, 1780.

    A lovely copy of the second edition, considerably augmented from the first of 1754, of this book of applied mathematical problems by the Veronese mathematician Gaetano Marzaglia (or Marcegaglia, 1716–1787), heavily influenced by the work of Wolff, who provides the motto to the book, and whose works...

    £650

  20. [MASCHERANA, Girolamo.]

    Concordia tra la società e la religione ossia Difesa del culto cattolico contro chi lo calunnia in contrasto...

    Milan, Cesare Orena nella stamperia Malatesta, 1798.

    Rare second edition, printed in the same year as the equally rare first, of this curious defence of religion in the light of the constitution of the Cisalpine Republic, in which the author seeks to demonstrate the compatibility of Catholicism with the Enlightenment ideals of the French Revolution and...

    £375