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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MILL, John Stuart; Hugo KOSTERKA and Václav PETRŽELKA, translators.
O Svobodě. Přeložili H. Kosterka a V. Petrželka...
Prague, Czech student magazine press, 1891.
First edition in Czech of On Liberty (1859), very rare, translated by the prominent translator and publisher Hugo Kosterka (1867–1956), editor and co-founder of the Moderní revue, and Václav Petrželka (1869–1927).
£650
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MILL, John Stuart; Jan VÁŇA, translator.
O Individualitě. Z anglického jazyka přeložil J. Váňa …
Váňa … Prague, Militký and Novák, 1880.
First edition in Czech, very rare, of Mill’s ‘On Individuality’, being chapter three of On Liberty (1859) – the first portion of that text to appear in Czech, and perhaps the earliest appearance of anything by Mill in that language. The translator was Jan Váňa (1847–1915),...
£350
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MILL, John Stuart; 中村 敬太郎 NAKAMURA Keitarō [i.e. 中村 正直 NAKAMURA Masanao], translator.
On Liberty. 自由之理...
Shizuoka, Ken’ichiro Kihira, Meiji Mizunoesaru/Jinshin [i.e. 1872].
First edition, rare, of the first Japanese translation of Mill’s On Liberty, published twelve years after the English original, and very popular in Japan as a result of this translation by the philosopher and educator Masanao Nakamura (1832–1891).
£2500
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[MILL, John Stuart, witness].
Report from the Select Committee on the Income and Property Tax; together with the Proceedings of...
[London], Ordered by the House of Commons, to be Printed, 1 August 1861.
First edition. This is the concluding report of the Commons Select Committee that had been responsible for investigating possible modifications to income tax policy. John Stuart Mill appeared before the Committee on the 18 June 1861, where he reiterated his central belief that the current system of income...
£175
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[MONASTICISM].
Risposta ad alcuni aggravi fatti ai monaci nel libro, che ha il titolo di Politica, diritto, e religione.
Milan, Francesco Agnelli, 1742.
Only edition of this anonymous response to Giuseppe Gorini Corio’s controversial Politica, diritto, e religione, that had appeared in Milan at the start of the same year.
£400
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MONIGLIA, Tommaso Vicenzo.
Osservazioni critico-filosofiche contro i materialisti, divise in due trattati ...
Lucca, Vincenzo Giuntini, 1760.
Uncommon anti-materialist work by the Tuscan philosopher Tommaso Moniglia (1686-1767).
£250
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[MONS.]
...
Mons, J. B. Varret, 1748.
First and only edition, very rare, of this history of the Sunday school in Mons, established for the Christian education of the boys and girls of the city and supported by the Canonesses of St Waltrude among other benefactors.
£975
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MONTE DI PIETÀ DI MILANO.
Piano, e regole per il buon governo della congregazione de’ creditori della Regia Ducal Camera di...
Milan, Giuseppe Richino Malatesta, [1753].
An uncommon description of the workings of an eighteenth-century Italian charitable organisation, bound in a contemporary paste paper wrapper.
£400
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[MONTEMAYOR, Jorge de, and Gaspar GIL POLO.]
The Troublesome and Hard Adventures in Love. Lively setting forth, the Feavers, the...
Alsop ... 1652 [but 1651].
The rare second edition of a text of 1594 known in a single imperfect copy (STC 153.3).
£7500
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MONTESQUIEU, Charles Louis de Secondat.
Miscellaneous Pieces … translated from the new Edition of his Works in Quarto printed...
London, Wilson and Durham, 1759.
Only edition thus, apparently the first appearance in English of these pieces.
£525
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[MONTESQUIEU, Charles Louis de Secondat.]
De l’esprit des loix, ou du rapport que les loix doivent avoir avec la constitution...
Geneva, Barrillot [sic], [1748].
First edition, first issue of Montesquieu’s masterpiece of political theory asserting the principle of the separation of a government’s powers as a means to prevent tyranny: a principle which formed the ideological basis of the French and American revolutions and became the cornerstone of the...
£25750
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MORE, Hannah.
Strictures on the modern System of female Education. With a View of the Principles and Conduct prevalent among Women...
London, T. Cadell Jun. and W. Davies, 1799.
Third edition, published in the same year of the first, of this hugely popular educational manual by the evangelical Bluestocking writer and philanthropist Hannah More (1745–1833).
£950
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MOREL DE RUBEMPRÉ, Joseph.
Les secrets de la génération ou l’art de procréer à volonté des filles ou des garçons, de faire...
chez tous les libraires, [c. 1870].
Joseph Morel de Rubempré’s (1812–86) popular guide to the secrets of sex, (billed as the thirtieth edition of vol. I and the twelfth of vol. II).
£150
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MORGAN, Lewis Henry.
Ancient Society or Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery, through Barbarism to Civilization.
New York, Holt, 1877.
First edition. Morgan’s influential work was considered by Marx and Engels to be putatively supportive of materialist history. Marx’s notes on this book were reputedly the source for Engels’s Origins of the Family, of private Property and the State, published in German in 1844. Morgan...
£400
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MORTON, John.
The natural History of Northampton-Shire, with some Account of the Antiquities, to which is annex’d a Transcript...
London, R. Knaplock and R. Wilkin, 1712.
First edition of Morton’s systematic natural history of Northamptonshire. Compiled over the course of a decade, Morton’s Natural History provides a careful account of the natural history, minerals, fossils, and geography of the county, accompanied by fourteen large copper-engravings....
£775
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MOZART, et al.
A volume of twelve piano duets adapted from overtures by Mozart, Rossini, and others by J. F. Burrowes, J. Mazzinghi,...
London, mostly Birchall & Co., 1810s–1820s.
A good collection of late Georgian piano duets, including adaptations from The Magic Flute, Don Giovanni, La Clemenza di Tito, Le Nozze di Figaro, and Il Barbiere di Siviglia, along with a few original compostions by Dussek, Mazzinghi, etc. A full list is available...
£350
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[MURDER.]
Arrest de la cour du Parlement, qui condamne Pierre Guyon, jardinier, à étre rompu vif ... dans la Place du Pilory...
Paris, Pierre-Guillaume Simon, 1778.
Very rare decree documenting the crimes and punishment of one Pierre Guyon, a murderous gardener from Poitiers; a case of green fingers turning blood-red.
£175
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[MURDER.]
A Warning Piece against the Crime of Murder: or, an Account of many extraordinary and most providential Discoveries of...
[London,] Printed for Wiliam Owen … ; and R Goadby, in Sherborne. [1752.]
First edition, very scarce, a fascinating compendium of grim crimes both real and clearly fictional, many ‘providentially discovered’ in a dream, revealed by returning ghosts, or uncovered ‘after many years concealment’, published in the context of the Murder Act of 1752 which introduced...
£300
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MURDOCH, Iris.
Sartre. Romantic Rationalist.
Cambridge, Bowes & Bowes, 1953.
First edition, the first published book of Iris Murdoch, in her capacity as a fellow and tutor in philosophy at St Anne’s College, Oxford.
£200
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MUSIL, Robert.
Vinzenz und die Freundin bedeutender Männer. Posse in drei Akten.
Berlin, Ernst Rowohlt Verlag, 1924.
Rare first edition of Musil’s early farce, featuring an abduction, extramarital affairs, and a staged murder, an important precursor to his most famous work, the unfinished modernist novel Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (The Man without Qualities).
£500