Advanced search

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.

Sort by
Author
Price
Date
Title

  1. [CAVALLERI, Paolo Agostino.]

    Lettera dall’Adriatico del signor Antonio Bianchi sopra l’opera de’diritti dell’uomo del sig....

    Rome, Giovanni Zempel, 1792 (colophon 1793).

    First edition, uncommon, of this counter-revolutionary polemic written in response to Spedalieri’s I diritti dell’uomo of the previous year and attributed to the Barnabite Paolo Agostino Cavalleri (1742-1803). Spedalieri had attempted a Catholic response to the revolutionary ideas of the rights of...

    £375

  2. [CERI, Giovacchino Domenico.]

    Prodromo all’estirpazione del pirronismo dalla ragion civile d’Italia.

    [Florence?] 1769.

    Only edition, uncommon, of this analysis of the political and legal organisation of Italy, and proposals for its improvement, by the Prato lawyer and historian Giovacchino Domenico Ceri (1734–1798).

    £375

  3. CHALMERS [CHAMBERS], David, Lord Ormond.

    Histoire abbregée de toutes les Roys de France, Angletaire, et Escosse … [with:]...

    Paris, Robert Coulombel ‘at the sign of Aldus’, 1579.

    First edition of the three principal works of David Chalmers (c. 1530–1592), a faithful follower of Mary, Queen of Scots, who appointed him Lord of Session and Privy Counsellor.

    £2500

  4. [CHAPBOOK.]

    Narrow Escape from the Punishment of Death, or, The Case of John Taylor and John Burton, who were left for Execution...

    Collins … and Evans and Sons … [c. 1820–1826].

    An uncommon early chapbook from the press of Augustus Applegath (1788–1871), interpreting the real-life stay of execution for two sheep-stealers as an act of divine providence.

    £225

  5. CHARLES, King of Sweden and Norway, or OSCAR I (attrib. authors), and Friedrich Ernst FELLER (translator).

    Ueber die Banken. (Von einem schwedischen Fürsten). Deutsch von F....

    Leipzig, Goetz, 1843.

    First edition thus, scarce, of a treatise on banks, banking and money in Sweden in the crucial years from 1800 to 1842, probably a translation of Om banker; skrift meddelad i Conseljen den 15 augusti 1842, attributed to Karl XIV Johan by Linnström, Svenskt boklexikon. Humpert’s...

    £125

  6. CHERUBINI, Luigi.

    Autograph note signed ‘L. Cherubini’ regarding the cellist Auguste Franchomme.

    [Paris,] 19 December 1825.

    A short note in which the composer and director of the Conservatoire de Paris Luigi Cherubini records that ‘Mr. Franchomme’ has been admitted into the class of ‘Mr. Seuriot’ and that he will begin there on 22 December 1825.

    £350

  7. CHESTERFIELD, Philip Dormer Stanhope, fourth Earl of.

    Letters written … to his Son, Philip Stanhope, Esq; late Envoy Extraordinary...

    London: Printed for Dodsley … 1777.

    Eighth edition, a very pretty set.

    £250

  8. CHEVALIER, André-Joseph, professor; A.J. BERENTS, compiler. 

    ‘Tractatus De Fide, Spe et Charitate Dictatus ab...

    [Douai, 9 March – 4 August] 1787. 

    A manuscript treatise concerning the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity as expounded in Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae, compiled by a student at the University of Douai from lectures by André-Joseph Chevalier. 

    £375

  9. CHEVRET, Jean.

    Épitre a l’humanité et a la patrie en particulier, sur le bon ordre & l’idée de la véritable liberté. Suivie...

    [Paris?], au temple de la vérité, 1789.

    A good copy of this rare essay on the workings of society and the conditions required for human flourishing, by the controversialist and librarian Jean Chevret (1747-1820). After a brief letter addressed to humanity in general and France (even, perhaps, Chevret’s own home town of Meulan) in particular,...

    £275

  10. CHRYSOSTOM, John. 

    [Opera: Homeliae.]  Que in secundo Ioannis Chrisostomi volumine continentur: Super Mattheum homelie 89 …...

    Venice, Stagnino & de Gregoriis, 1503. 

    First edition of Chrysostom’s Opera omnia, the second volume (of two), annotated throughout by two critical readers. 

    £2800

  11. CHURCHILL, Winston S.

    A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Volume I: The Birth of Britain [– Volume II: The New World;...

    London, Cassel & Company Ltd, [1956; – 1956; – 1957; – 1958].

    First editions, with dust-jackets, of Churchill’s History of the English-Speaking Peoples, his last major historical work.

    £200

  12. CHURCHILL, Winston Spencer; F. RHODES, editor; Angus McNEILL, illustrator.

    The River War: An Historical Account...

    [London, Spottiswoode & Co. for] London, New York, & Bombay (Mumbai), Longmans, Green, & Co., 1899.

    First edition of Churchill’s second book, a history of Lord Kitchener’s conquest of Sudan in 1896-99 informed by his own service as both a cavalry officer and a war correspondent on the campaign, profusely illustrated with drawings and maps.

    £2500

  13. [CHYDENIUS, Anders].

    Källan til Rikets Wan-Magt.

    Stockholm, Lars Salvius, 1765.

    First edition of ‘an all-out attack on the Swedish Navigation Act, known as the Produkt-plakatet. It prohibited foreign vessels from carrying other products to Sweden than those of their own country, and, as the original act of 1724 was extended in scope in 1726, they were also prohibited from engaging...

    £175

  14. CICERO, Marcus Tullius.

    De Officiis … libri tres. Item, de amicitia: de senectute: paradoxa: & de somnio Scipionis. Cum indice...

    London, [Felix Kingston for] the Stationers’ Company, 1631.

    London edition of the ‘greatest hits’ of Cicero for the early seventeenth century: De Officiis, ‘Laelius on friendship’, ‘Cato Major on old age’, the Stoic Paradoxes, and the Dream of Scipio from De Republica, with the notes of Erasmus, who was famously an admirer of...

    £600

  15. CICERO, Marcus Tullius.

    De Officiis … libri tres, ex editione Oliveti Parisiis vulgata.

    London, T. Payne, 1791.

    First Payne edition, edited by Henry Homer (1753–1791). A friend of the writer and schoolmaster Samuel Parr since his days at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Homer produced editions of Livy, Tacitus, Sallust, Pliny the Younger, and others.

    £450

  16. CLARENDON, Edward Hyde, Earl of. 

    The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, begun in the Year 1641.  With...

    Oxford, Printed at the Theater, 1702[–4]. 

    First edition of Clarendon’s monumental History of the Civil War, with a presentation inscription by his son Henry Hyde, the second Earl (1638–1709). 

    £3250

  17. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA (Titus Flavius CLEMENS). 

    Omnia opera. 

    Paris, Sebastien Nivelle, 1572. 

    A thoroughly annotated copy of this early edition of the complete works of Clement of Alexandria, in the Latin translation of Gentian Hervet.  Clement lived and wrote in the second and third centuries, one of the most important interpreters of Christianity within an established Greek philosophical...

    £4750

  18. [CLIFFORD, Jeronimy].

    The case of Jeronimy Clifford, merchant and planter of Surinam. Paper, No. 160.

    [London, n.p., 1711].

    First extended account of Clifford’s long-running legal battle with the Dutch West India Company in Surinam over Corcabo, his sugar plantation. The earlier publications had been just four pages long; this work furnishes us with plantation account details and testimonies, chronologically arranged with...

    £650

  19. CLIFFORD, Jeronimy.

    The case and replication of the legal representatives of Jeronimy Clifford; a British subject; and late merchant...

    London, C. Say, 1763.

    First edition of this comprehensive summary of Clifford’s long-running legal battle with the Dutch West India Company in Surinam over Corcabo, his sugar plantation, from the Macclesfield library, including a handsome folding ‘map of the colony of Surinam’.

    £850

  20. [COAL].

    The miner’s journal. Coal statistical register, for 1869… also, statistics of the iron trade… rates of wages… together...

    Pottsville, PA, Miners’ Journal Office, 1869.

    First edition, rare. A synopsis of the trade, transportation and activities connected with coal between Pennsylvania and New York. The Miner’s Journal tracked the pulse of American coal trade, including importations of foreign coal and exports of domestic material. It prided itself on circulating ‘more...

    £125