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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[MARLBOROUGH, John Churchill, Duke of.]
Tract volume of five rare works (three not in the British Library) relating to the...
London, 1695–1706.
The Hero of the Age, published December 1704 by the otherwise unknown Jasper Robins, is one of the rarest literary contributions to the national outpouring that accompanied the martial success of John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough, in the early years of the eighteenth century. It comprises...
£3850
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[MASCHERANA, Girolamo.]
Concordia tra la società e la religione ossia Difesa del culto cattolico contro chi lo calunnia in contrasto...
Milan, Cesare Orena nella stamperia Malatesta, 1798.
Rare second edition, printed in the same year as the equally rare first, of this curious defence of religion in the light of the constitution of the Cisalpine Republic, in which the author seeks to demonstrate the compatibility of Catholicism with the Enlightenment ideals of the French Revolution and...
£375
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MILL, John Stuart.
A szabadságról ... Angolból forditotta és az elöszót irta Kállay Béni.
Pest, Kiadja Ráth Mór, 1867.
First Hungarian edition of John Stuart Mill’s great essay On Liberty, with a lengthy introduction by the Austro-Hungarian statesman Béni Kállay (1839–1903). First published in 1859, Mill’s vastly influential essay was dedicated to his wife Harriet who had provided the stimulus for...
£450
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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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[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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MOORE, George.
Manuscript commonplace book of poems, songs, prayers, and letters.
1805–1855.
An appealing commonplace book of verses and songs, with occasional prayers and letters, mostly written by George Moore (1794–1854), a London soda water manufacturer and amateur poet who was murdered by the notorious French revolutionary Emmanuel Barthélemy (1823–1855).
£550
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MOSZKOWSKI, Alexander; [H.J. STENNING, translator].
The Isles of Wisdom.
London, George Routledge & Sons, 1924.
First English edition of Alexander Moszkowski’s dystopian satire, an imagined visit to a series of southeast Asian islands which each subscribe unreservedly to a different philosophical school of thought.
£250
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MYLIUS, Georg, and Michael HOPF.
De visitatione ecclesiastica.
Jena, Tobias Steinmann, 1593.
First edition, rare, of an early work on the nature, scope, limits and jurisdiction of canonical visitations, the visitationes ecclesiasticae, a key element in the outline of jurisdiction, responsibility and control established by the Catholic Reformation in the last decades of the sixteenth century.
£200
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[NAPLES.]
Manuale della contribuzione fondiaria compilato per disposizione di S. E. il ministro segretario di stato delle finanze....
Naples, Tipografia Flautina, 1835.
First edition. In two parts, the first of which sets out the basis of property taxation, while the second treats the collection and transmission of sums owing, this manual prints the legislation in force in the nearer Neapolitan part (always described as ‘This side of the Lighthouse’, whereas Sicily...
£200
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[NAPOLEON.]
Lois et réglemens pour les lycees.
Paris, ‘de l’imprimerie de la République, an XII,’ 1803.
Rare first edition of this extremely interesting collection of laws and regulations governing secondary education in France, reflecting the historic changes enacted between 1801 and 1803 by Napoleon as First Consul, in particular the establishment of lycées.
£175
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[NECKER, Jacques.]
Eloge de Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Discours qui a remporté le prix de l’Académie Françoise, en 1773.
Paris, J.B. Brunet, 1773. [bound with:]
First edition of Necker’s first work. Necker (1732–1804) was the opponent of Turgot (whose position he was to take over in 1777) in action as well as in theory, agreeing with Forbonnais on the side of State-regulation. The encomiastic function of this work, his first book, is in fact a thin cover...
£750
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[NEW YORK.]
Notarial instrument attesting to the residence of two French immigrants in New York.
New York, 27 July 1797.
An interesting notarial document recording the immigration of two members of the French minor nobility to America during the French Revolution and Directory.
£850
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[NOLHAC, Jean-Baptiste-Marie.]
Réflexions sur la punition des grands crimes, considérée dans ses rapports avec la morale, extraites...
Lyon, Louis Perrin, 1836.
First and only edition, inscribed from the author. An extensive essay against the death penalty, and especially against public executions by Jean-Baptiste-Marie Nolhac (1770-1878) using arguments derived from ‘la digité de la nature humaine et du danger des spectacles sanglants’, written in response...
£150
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[NOVA SCOTIA.]
A Fair Representation of His Majesty’s Right to Nova-Scotia or Acadie. Briefly stated from the Memorials of the...
London: Printed by Edward Owen … 1756.
First edition. ‘Résumé très bien fait de toute la question des frontières de l’Acadie entre la France et l’Angleterre; mais écrit au point de vue de l’Angleterre seulement’ (Gagnon).
£750
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OWEN, Robert.
Robert Owen’s Journal. Explanatory of the means to well-place, well-employ, and well-educate, the whole population....
London, James Watson, 1850-1.
The first 23 issues of Robert Owen’s Journal, which would go on to reach a total of 104 issues ending in October 1852. Almost entirely written by Owen himself, the Journal was the main vehicle of Owenite social and political philosophy, directed to a general readership as well as policy-makers.
£350
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[PADUA.]
Statuta Patavina noviter impressa cum diligenti cura et castigatione et cum additionibus necessariis tam provisionum...
Venice, Girolamo Giberti, 25 January 1528.
An attractive volume of statutes relating to the city of Padua in northern Italy, edited by the legal scholar Bartolomeo Abborario, with detailed annotations by a practicing local lawyer.
£2500
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PALMERSTON, Henry John Temple, third Viscount.
Signed undertaking to procure an Assignment of Term from the Executors of the Will...
22 July 1806.
Document signed by the young Palmerston, arising from the sale of his property at East Sheen, near Mortlake, to Thomas Bernard of Wimpole Street in 1805.
£675
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PALMERSTON, Henry John Temple, Viscount.
Autograph document signed, approving a plan for a ‘Prison for Boys’ at Durham...
Whitehall, 2 February 1853.
A document signed by Lord Palmerston as Home Secretary. He signifies his approval of ‘the annexed plan [no longer present] of a Prison for Boys, on the upper floor of the South Wing of the Gaol for the County of Durham’.
£400
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[PAPAL STATES.]
Constitutio Sanctissimi Domini Nostri Pii PP. VII. super restauratione regiminis pontificii.
Rome and Ancona, ‘ex typographia societatis Palmini’, 1800.
Very rare Ancona printing, in the same year as the original Rome issue, of this Papal decree issued the day after the restoration of the Papal States after two years of the Napoleonic Roman Republic. The fall of the Republic was triggered by the arrival in October 1799 of Neapolitan troops, but...
£250