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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PHILIDOR, François-André Danican (William Stopford KENNY, translator).
Analysis of the game of chess … illustrated...
& J. Allman, 1819.
First edition of William Kenny’s translation of L’analyse du jeu des Échecs. For many years Kenny (1787/8–1867) ‘kept a classical school at 5 Fitzroy Street, Fitzroy Square, London, later moving to Richmond, Surrey. In 1856 Kenny stated that he had been a teacher for forty...
£200
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[PHILOSOPHY.
Philosophy course on logic. Brussels, early eighteenth century?]
[Brussels, early eighteenth century?]
An elegant manuscript philosophy course on logic, likely produced at a Jesuit college, where logic was one of the three philosophy courses taught along with natural philosophy and metaphysics.
£375
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PICK, G. Vesian.
Digest of political economy: the principles of John Stuart Mill.
London, Swan Sonnerschein & Co., 1893.
Second edition (first 1892) of Pick’s epitome of J.S. Mill’s Principles of political economy. Stating his aim as to ‘present a bird’s-eye view of Political Economy’, with a secondary intent of being used by students as a companion volume to the treatise itself, Pick aims to bring a new simplicity...
£100
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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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PIEROTTI, A.
Il cervello e la difesa delle donne sestine giocose ... precedute da indirizzo, e dedica in vario metro.
Florence, N. Fabbrini, 1842.
First and only edition, very rare, of this misogynistic poem by the Florentine poet Pierotti, in which he pretends to explore the female brain with reference to Galen, accusing women of, for example, greed, theft, cunning, vanity, and irascibility. The second part is a somewhat patronising defense...
£375
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PIERTZ, Leonhard, Praesidens; Johann Ernst SCHLERETH, Respondens.
De sacramentis in specie, Eucharistia et Poenitentia...
Würzburg, Johann Michael Kleyer, 1703.
A good copy of this rare Würzburg dissertation on the sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance, under the Jesuit professor Leonhard Piertz (1662–1741). The dissertation discusses when the Eucharist was instituted, what verbal formulae are necessary for consecration, whether the Eucharistic sacrifice...
£175
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[PINNOCK, William].
A catechism of the history of France, containing a clear outline of all the important changes which that country...
London, Printed by Bensley and Sons for Pinnock and Maunder, [c. 1819].
Second edition of this much-reprinted guide to French history for British youth from the Roman conquest of Gaul to the fall of Napoleon, one of Pinnock’s many catechisms on historical and scientific subjects.
£125
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PITTER, Přemysl.
Domovu i exilu [Home and Exile].
London, Čechoslovák-FCI, [1956].
First editions, association copies, of a series of radio transcripts by the humanitarian Protestant lay preacher and educator Přemysl Pitter (1895–1976), often described as the ‘forgotten Czech Schindler’, owned by the Czech-Jewish poet, novelist, and Holocaust survivor H.G. Adler.
£850
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[PLAYING CARDS.]
Complete Deck of 52 Playing Cards.
London, Bancks Brothers, successors to Hunt & Sons, c. 1849.
An extremely well-preserved complete deck of playing cards by Bancks Brothers.
£200
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PLINY the Younger.
Epistolarum libri X & panegyricus.
Leiden, [Bonaventure & Abraham] Elzevir, 1640.
First Elzevir edition, handsomely bound for the Irish politician Thomas Wogan Browne.
£450
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PLUTARCH.
...
Venice, Nicolao di Aristotile detto Zoppino, March 1525.
An attractive illustrated edition of twenty-seven of Plutarch’s lives, extensively annotated by a Papal tax-collector, in a striking contemporary binding.
£2750
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POEMS ON AFFAIRS OF STATE:
from the Time of Oliver Cromwell, to the Abdication of K. James the Second. Written by the greatest...
Printed in the Year 1702
Fourth edition of this popular collection of witty verse and political satire, with the second edition of State-Poems continued (1697). Much of the poetry collected here was initially circulated in manuscript because of its political subject matter (which includes the Dutch wars, the Popish Plot, and...
£425
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PONTANO, Giovanni.
De rebus coelestibus.
Naples, ‘ex officina Sigismundi Mayr Germani : summo ingenio artificis Ioannetto Salodio : Antonio Vuerengrundt : Evangelista Papiensi :...
First editions of three works on cosmology, ethics, and astrology by the Neapolitan humanist, poet, and polymath Giovanni Pontano (1426–1503), an important sammelband from the celebrated library of Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605), professor of natural philosophy and natural history at the University...
£11000
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POPPER, Karl.
A substantial archive of books and associated working papers from one of the most important philosophers of modernity;...
London et al., 1960s–1970s.
An extremely important archive witnessing the development of Karl Popper’s thought and showcasing his writing process, from the library of his former research assistant, Dr Ivan Slade.
£175000
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PORTER, Anna Maria.
The Village of Mariendorpt. A Tale … in four Volumes …
London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown … 1821
First edition of a rather melodramatic novel set in Bavaria towards the end of the Thirty Years War. It proved just what Longman was looking for, and a sequel, Roche-Blanche, followed in 1822.
£1200
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PORTER, Jane.
Duke Christian of Luneburg; or, Tradition from the Hartz … in three Volumes …
London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green … 1824.
First edition. One of the earliest exponents of the historical novel, Porter enjoyed enormous popularity during her lifetime. Duke Christian of Luneburg was her sixth book, which she modestly described as ‘a little traditionary [sic] sketch of an illustrious hero’. Set in sixteenth-century...
£650
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[PORTUGAL.]
Memorias economicas da Academia Real das Sciencias de Lisboa, para o adiantamento da Agricultura, das Artes, e da Industria...
Lisbon, Officina da Academia Real das Sciencias, 1789 1815.
First edition. The long period of publication accounts for the rarity of complete sets of this important periodical, containing articles on industry, agriculture, political economy, statistics and general social and geographical matters. They exhibit the continued influence of Physiocratic ideas after...
£750
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[PORTUGAL.]
Centro dei Comunisti. Lotta di classe e potere politico in Portogallo (Quaderni Comunisti).
Rome, 26 September 1975.
An historical overview of the Portuguese ‘Carnation Revolution’ of 25 April 1974 and its aftermath, including a reproduction of João Abel Manta’s famous poster showing Vasco Gonçalves, Portugal’s prime minister, with his arms around a member of the MFA (Movimento das Forças Armadas)...£100
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POSTEL, Guillaume, and Anthonius THYSIUS.
De Republica, seu magistratibus Atheniensium liber … Accessit Antonii Thysii IC. Discursus...
Leiden, Jean Maire, 1645.
An uncommon Leiden edition of Postel’s study of the Athenian magistracy, first published 1541 and revised and enlarged in 1551. Jean Ballesdens edited an edition for Maire in 1635; this 1645 edition added an essay on the same topic by the librarian and historian Anthony Thysius the Younger (1603–1665),...
£200
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[POWNALL, Thomas.] POWNALL, Charles A. W.
Thomas Pownall M.P., F.R.S., Governor of Massachusetts Bay, Author of The Letters of...
London, Henry Stevens, Son & Stiles, 1908.
First edition. Thomas Pownall, English colonial administrator and Governor of Massachusetts, was one of the earliest critics of Adam Smith, publishing a critical Letter (1776) discussing the Wealth of Nations. Although he expressed admiration for Smith’s work in the Letter, he opposed his view of the...
£100