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.
-
[BRISTOL.]
The Bristol Contest, being a Collection of all the Papers published by both Parties, on the Election, 1754.
Bristol, ‘sold by the Printing-Office … and by J. Palmer’, [1754].
Extremely rare first edition of this Bristol-printed political pamphlet, bound with the first edition of a French work on pyrotechnics used both for spectacle and for war.
£650
-
BRITISH MUSEUM.
List of Missing English Theological and Devotional Books.
[London, 1940s.]
Mimeographed typescript of books missing after the losses suffered by the British Museum Library during the Second World War. This is one of several lists of books destroyed, produced both as a record and as a tool for acquiring replacement copies – this copy appears to have been used for that...
£275
-
BROGGI, Ugo.
Die Axiome der Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung.
Göttingen, Dieterischen Universitäts-Buchdruckerei, 1907.
Rare first edition of this doctoral dissertation on the solution of Hilbert’s sixth problem, written under the supervision of David Hilbert. The problem posed tried to axiomatize those branches of science in which mathematics is prevalent. Broggi here aims to establish a system with which to prove...
£200
-
BROUGHAM, Lord Henry.
Lives of men of letters and science who flourished in the time of George III … with portraits, engraved...
London, Charles Knight and Co., 1845-47.
First edition of the first volume (1845), later edition of the second volume (dated 1847, first published 1846) of Brougham’s lives which includes Voltaire, Hume, Davy, Johnson, and Adam Smith to name a few stars in the firmament of the reign of George III, or, in Brougham’s terms, the ‘Augustan...
£125
-
BROWNING, Elizabeth Barrett.
Poems before Congress …
London: Chapman and Hall … 1860.
First edition of a slender collection of seven poems on the cause of Italian independence, and one attacking slavery in the United States (‘A Curse for a Nation’). The Congress of the title had been planned for Paris in January 1860, but Austria withdrew on learning that Napoleon III meant to use...
£200
-
[BUNBURY, Henry William.] ‘GAMBADO, Geoffrey’.
Annals of Horsemanship, containing Accounts of accidental Experiments and experimental...
London, W. Nicholson for W. Baynes, 1808.
Third edition of Bunbury’s satirical work with humorous etchings. First published in 1791 and often presented as a continuation of Bunbury’s Academy for grown Horsemen (published in 1784 also under the name Gambado), the Annals of Horsemanship is a parody of Arthur Young’s...
£475
-
BUONACCORSI, Biagio, and Niccolò VALORI.
Diario de’ successi piu importanti seguiti in Italia, & particolarmente in...
Florence, Filippo & Jacopo Giunta, 1568.
First edition of an insider account of Medici politics by Biagio Buonaccorsi (1472–1522), colleague and confidant of Machiavelli, bound with the first edition of Malespini’s history of Florence and owned by Claude-Enoch Virey, secretary to Henri II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé.
£1000
-
BUQUOY, Georg Franz August de Longueval, Freiherr von Vaux, Graf von.
Anregungen für philosophisch-wissenschaftliche Forschung...
Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, 1825.
First edition, rare, of a comprehensive discussion by the author of his personal philosophy, with c. 50 pages of his poetry thrown in at the end for good measure. Samuel Hahnemann refers to the work in Die chronischen Krankheiten (1828–30), calling Buquoy a ‘deep-thinking, many-sided scholar and...
£950
-
BURLAMAQUI, Jean Jacques.
Principes du droit naturel.
Geneva, Barrillot & fils, 1747.
First edition of the first work, bound with a very early edition of the second work. The Droit politique was first published posthumously in 1751 as the necessary companion to the Droit naturel; when in contemporary bindings, they are sometimes found together in various combinations...
£2500
-
BUXTON, Thomas Fowell.
The African Slave Trade and its Remedy …
London, John Murray, 1840.
First complete edition of the principal anti-slavery work of the politician and abolitionist Thomas Fowell Buxton (1786–1845), a presentation copy to a fellow abolitionist, James Pearson, dated 5 November 1840.
£750
-
CAGNAZZI, Luca de Samuele.
Analisi dell’ economia privata e pubblica degli antichi relativamente a quella de’ moderni …
Naples, Società filomatica, 1830.
First edition. Cagnazzi (1764–1852) was originally a teacher of mathematics by profession, receiving a professorship at Naples in 1806. ‘His life was full of trouble; having been concerned in political intrigues, he had to flee from Naples and, after wandering, nearly always on foot, through Italy...
£125
-
CAIROL, M. de.
Réflexions historiques et politiques, sur les revolutions qu’a essuyé l’agriculture sous différens gouvernemens,...
Amsterdam and Toulouse, Joseph Robert, 1786.
Very rare essay on the state of agriculture in France, and in particular in the Languedoc, examining the ways in which the policies of various governments (from the Romans and Visigoths onwards) have affected agricultural production, the current situation, and the ways in which matters could be...
£450
-
CALVERT, William John.
The demand for labour is wealth … Supplement to monopoly and taxation vindicated against the errors of...
Newark, M. Hage and London, Longman … 1822.
Very rare first edition of Calvert’s supplement to his own work, Monopoly and taxation vindicated etc., published in 1821. Calvert wrote anonymously in the name of ‘a Nottinghamshire farmer’, but here uses his name. The supplement argues that Britain’s wealth and military success against France...
£250
-
CAMPBELL, Duncan.
A Poem upon Tea. Wherein its Antiquity, its several Virtues and Influences are set forth; and the Wisdom...
London, Mrs. Dodd, J. Roberts, J. Wilcox et al., 1735.
First and only edition, very scarce, of a series of poetical sketches in praise of tea over alcohol, dedicated ‘To the Fair Sex’ and with an unusual double preface to the masculine and then the feminine reader. Tea had arrived in Britain in the 1650s, but its expense made it very exclusive;...
£2500
-
[CAMPOMANES, Pedro Rodriguez, Conde de].
Discurso sobre el Fomento de la Industria popular. De orden de S. M. [Carlos III] y del...
Madrid, D. Antonio de Sancha, 1774.
First edition; preceding the complementary Discurso sobre la educación popular de los artesanos y su fomenta (1775); Dutch and Italian editions appeared in 1780 and 1787. Campomanes (1723–1802) was, according to McCulloch, ‘one of the most intelligent and distinguished Spanish statesmen of [the...
£400
-
CAMPOMANES, Pedro Rodriguez (Antonio Conca y Alcaraz, translator).
Trattato della regalia d’ammortizzazione, nel quale si dimostra,...
Parma, Filippo Carmignani, 1767.
First Italian translation of this influential treatise on the property rights of the Church and the state in Spain by the Spanish philosopher, economist, and historian Pedro Rodríguez de Campomanes (1723-1803).
£350
-
CAPRA, Alessandro.
Geometria famigliare, et instruttione pratica d’Alessandro Capra architetto cremonese. Per gl’edificii nuovi,...
Cremona, Gio[vanni] Pietro Zanni, 1671.
An exceedingly rare extract from the first edition of the treatise of practical geometry by the architect and inventor Alessandro Capra (c. 1605–c. 1685), seemingly prepared and sold as a manual for surveyors and early estate agents.
£575
-
CARAVADOSSI, Enrico.
La moderna filosofia convinta d’inganno nelle sue promesse di felicità libertà ed uguaglianza ragionamenti...
Turin, Giammichele Brioio, 1793.
First and seemingly only edition of this attack on the false promises of the philosophes, by the Torinese Dominican friar Enrico Caravadossi.
£395
-
CAREY, Henry Charles.
Principles of social science … In three volumes …
Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott, 1858-1859.
First edition, a very attractive copy, of Carey’s principal work. ‘His treatment of social science was original, and led him to a series of supposed discoveries, the order of which he has stated in the introduction of his most important work The Principles of Social Science. His point of departure...
£500
-
CARNAP, Rudolf.
1959 & 1962.
The first photograph shows Carnap and his wife outside their house and is signed and, in another hand, dated 1959 as having been taken in Santa Monica. The second photograph is of Carnap and is dated 1960, signed and inscribed “Der lieben Erna, in alter Freundschaft”. This refers to Erna Lowenberg...
£1500