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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. [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

  2. POSTEL, Guillaume. 

    De originibus, seu, de varia et potissimum orbi Latino ad hanc diem incognita, aut inconsyderata historia,...

    Basel, Johannes Oporinus, [1553].

    First edition of Postel’s investigations into the original language as a means to regain the primordial unity of mankind. 

    £3500

  3. POUND, Ezra, and D. G. BRIDSON.

    ‘Four Steps’ by Ezra Pound. Produced by D. G. Bridson.

    [7 May 1958].

    Typescript of the broadcast of ‘Four Steps’, as recorded by Bridson in Washington in 1956, aired on the evening of Pound’s release from St Elizabeth’s Hospital in 1958, along with Bridson’s introductory statement, explaining the genesis of the recording. Here Pound carefully explained the four...

    £450

  4. [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

  5. [PRADT, Dominique Georges Frédéric de Riom de Prolhiac du Four de].

    Antidote au Congrès de Rastadt, ou Plan d’un nouvel équilibre...

    London [i.e. Hamburg], 1798.

    First edition of the Abbé de Pradt’s first and most famous work. The entries for the present work in Barbier, Quérard and NUC (which gives a different pagination) all include ‘par l’auteur des “Considérations sur la France”’ in their transcription of the title-page. Our copy is completely...

    £250

  6. [PRELLEUR, Peter.]

    The Compleat Tutor for the Harpsichord or Spinnet wherein is shewn the Italian Manner of Fingering with suits...

    London, Peter Thompson, musical instrument maker [1755?]

    First edition thus?, an abridgment of part 6 of Prelleur’s Modern Musick-Master (1731) but with different musical examples. The examples, printed on pp. 5–32, include popular tunes and dances alongside pieces adapted from Handel and Corelli.

    £1250

  7. [PRIMER.] 

    Abbecedario per imparar facilmente a sillabicare, coll’aggiunta di varie orazioni ad uso delle scuole. 

    Turin, Giacinto Marietti, [c. 1840?]. 

    A seemingly unrecorded Torino-printed primer, with a series of syllabised phrases on devotion and morality. 

    £400

  8. [PRIMER.] 

    Nouvel alphabet en français, divisé par syllabes. 

    Orléans, ‘Chez Berthevin, libraire’, [c. 1820]. 

    An unrecorded Orléans-printed devotional primer, including litanies to the Christ Child (with vertically-printed refrains) and the duties of children toward their parents. 

    £450

  9. PUBLICOLA.

    An answer to an audacious letter from John Angelo Belloni, dated Rome the 4th of May, 1732. N.S. Being an antidote to...

    London, [n. p.], 1732.

    An extremely rare pamphlet of economic and political interest, relating to fraudulent activity in the Charitable Corporation and to one of the chief culprit’s rumoured links to the Old Pretender.

    £450

  10. PURSEY, Thomas.

    The last General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland.

    [Edinburgh, T. Pursey, 1900.]

    A photographic tour-de-force, assembling many hundreds of individual photographic portraits neatly incorporated into a painted scenario, and then reproduced as a photogravure, depicting all the attendees of the last General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, held in May 1900. Evidently a...

    £2000

  11. [QUESNAY, François].

    DU PONT DE NEMOURS, Pierre Samuel, editor. Physiocratie, ou constitution naturelle du gouvernement le plus...

    First edition of the ‘Bible’ of the Physiocrats and one of the most important and original works on political economy to be published before the Wealth of Nations. The excessively rare ‘Pékin’ imprint was printed in very small numbers and swiftly withdrawn because of a statement on page 104...

    £37500

  12. RADLOVA, Anna Dmitrievna.

    Korabli. Vtoraia kniga stikhov [Ships. A Second Book of Poems].

    St Petersburg, “Alkonost”, 1920.

    First edition of the second collection of poems published by Anna Radlova (1891–1949), a poet well-known for her translations of Shakespeare.

    £150

  13. RADLOVA, Anna Dmitrievna.

    Krylatyi gost’. Tret’ia kniga stikhov [The Winged Guest. A Third Book of Poems].

    [St Petersburg,] “Petropolis”, 1922.

    First edition: Radlova’s third collection of poems, written in 1920–22.

    £120

  14. RAIMONDI, Eugenio. 

    Delle caccie … libri Quattro, aggiuntovi’n questa nuova ’mpressione il quinto libro della villa. 

    [Naples, Lazzaro Scoriggio, 1626.]

    Second edition, expanded and extended, with a new series of striking venatic plates.  The series of plates (attributable to Nicolas Perrey, who signs the title), showing composite scenes of hunters pursuing animals from birds and fish to lions and elephants, is wholly new, replacing the woodcut...

    £2500

  15. [RALEIGH, Henry Patrick].

    Must children die and mothers plead in vain? Buy More Liberty Bonds.

    New York, Sakett & Wilhelms Corp., [1918].

    This poster was produced to for the sale of the third or fourth liberty loans in 1918, which saw the printing of 9 and 10 million promotional posters produced, respectively. The large-scale of the effort was seen to reflect a turning point in war advertising. As the US was an immigrant nation, the Federal...

    £400

  16. [RALPH, James.]

    The Case of Authors by Profession or Trade, stated: with regard to Booksellers, the Stage, and the Public. No matter...

    London, R. Griffiths, 1758.

    First edition, ‘the first protest raised in the eighteenth century against the treatment of authors and dramatists by booksellers and theatre managers’ (ODNB).

    £850

  17. RAMUS, Petrus.

    P. Rami ... Oratio de legatione.

    Paris, Andreas Wechel, 1557.

    First (?) edition: a fascinating pamphlet marking a critical epoch in the history of the University of Paris and the first occasion on which Ramus came into prominence as champion of his University and of higher education in general.

    £800

  18. RAMUS, Petrus.

    Harangue ... touchant ce qu'ont faict les deputez de l’Université de Paris envers le Roy. Mise de Latin en Francois.

    Paris, Andreas Wechel, 1557.

    First French-language edition of the above, issued simultaneously with the Latin text and presumably translated by Ramus himself. Apart from La Dialectique, this is one of Ramus’ very few works in the vernacular. Very rare.

    £950

  19. [REEVE, Gabriel].

    Directions left by a Gentleman to his Sonns: for the Improvement of barren and heathy Land, in England and Wales.

    London, Printed by E. T. and R. H. for R. Royston … 1670

    Sole edition of one of the first books in English devoted to soil conservation. The dedication is signed Gabriel Reeve and dated from Hackney, 14 April 1670.

    £650

  20. REID, Thomas.

    Essays on the powers of the human mind; to which are prefixed, an Essay on quantity, and an Analysis of Aristotle’s...

    [Edinburgh, W. Aitchison for] London, Ogle, Duncan & Co., and Edinburgh, J. Dick & Co. and W. Hunter, and Glasgow, M. Ogle, 1822.

    A beautiful set of this small format edition of the principal philosophical works of the Scottish enlightenment philosopher Thomas Reid (1710–1796).

    £750