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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. [JUVENILE.]

    [Library for Youth, or Book-Case of Knowledge, 10 vols.]

    London: Printed for John Wallis … by T. Gillet or J. Cundee … 1800.

    A fine complete set of Wallis’s ‘Library for Youth’ also known as the ‘Book-Case of Knowledge’, with all ten volumes in the first editions, dated 1800, and with two original designs (in reverse) for the frontispieces.

    £4750

  2. KEATE, George. 

    An Account of the Pelew Islands, situated in the western part of the Pacific Ocean: composed from the journals...

    Dublin, Luke White, 1788. 

    First Dublin edition of this popular work, first published in London earlier the same year, by the virtuoso George Keate, member of the Royal Society and Society of Antiquities (1729−1797). 

    £650

  3. KIRAM, Zeki Hasmet. 

    Vocabularium anatomiae latine-turcice.  [Qamūs te šrih lātīnğe-türkğe]. 

    Berlin, Morgen- und Abendland-Verlag, 1923.

    First edition of a comprehensive glossary of anatomical terms in Latin with corresponding translation in Ottoman Turkish, intended for medical students among the increasingly large Turkish community in Germany, by the Syrian Ottoman officer turned Berlin publicist, arms dealer, and Muslim activist...

    £375

  4. KIRAM, Zeki Hasmet. 

    Vocabularium anatomiae latine-arabice.  [Qāmūs al-ta¬šrīḥ Lātīnī-‘Arabī]. 

    Berlin, Morgen- und Abendland-Verlag, 1923.

    First edition of an uncommon glossary of anatomical terms in Latin with corresponding translation in Arabic, intended for Arabic-speaking medical students studying in European universities, by army officer turned Berlin publicist, arms dealer, and Muslim activist Zeki Kiram (1886–1946).

    £375

  5. [KNIGHT, Charles.]

    The Elephant, principally viewed in Relation to Man: A new Edition, revised by the Author.

    London, William Clowes & Sons for Charles Knight & Co., 1844.

    First editions of treatises on the elephant and the horse, from Charles Knight’s Library of Entertaining Knowledge. The equine text gives accounts of horses and related species in several cultures and climes, and, with The Elephant, forms two works from a series of three, on ‘the three...

    £275

  6. KOCH, Manfred (pr.), Primo SCHLECHTEN and Feliciano SCHARRER (resp.).

    Philosophia rationalis sive logica centum assertionibus comprehensa...

    Augsburg, Afra Sturmin, 1695.

    A good copy of this rare dissertation from the Augustinian college at Rottenbuch in Bavaria, attempting to reduce logic (the science of reasoning) to one hundred numbered paragraphs. Describing the function and limits of logic, the authors, both Austin canons at Rottenbuch, explain the use of syllogisms,...

    £275

  7. KOCH, Mansuetus.

    Philosophia transnaturalis, sive metaphysica, centum assertionibus comprehensa, et publicae disputationi in celeberrimo...

    Augsburg, Maria Magdalena Utzschneiderin, 1697.

    Only edition (complete despite the pagination) of this dissertation defended at the Augustinian college in Rottenbuch, attempting to provide a survey of metaphysics in one hundred paragraphs. The work explains, among other matters, the scope and purpose of metaphysics, the basis of Aristotelian metaphysics,...

    £225

  8. LA SALLE, Jean-Baptiste, Saint. 

    Les règles de la bienséance et de la civilité chrétienne, divisées en deux parties. 

    Rheims, Le Batard [– Barbier], 1808. 

    Rare edition of La Salle’s pedagogical work, printed in civilité type and bound in printed and manuscript waste. 

    £750

  9. LEE, Edwin.

    The Principal Baths of Germany [– The Baths of Nassau Baden and the adjacent Districts; – The Baths of central...

    London, Whittaker & Cp., Paris, Galignani & Cp., and Frankfurt & Wiesbaden, Charles Jugel 1840 [– 1841].

    First edition, scarce, of Edwin Lee’s two-volume survey of palliative bathing spots in Germany, including an appendix on the ‘Cold Water Cure’, a combination of induced sweating and cold-water therapy ‘of late very much in vogue’ (appendix).

    £350

  10. LE GROS, Nicolas.

    Meditations sur les epistres Catholiques de S. Jacques, S. Pierre, et St. Jean. Avec le texte Latin et François...

    Paris, chez Savoye, 1754.

    First edition of this extensive work of meditations by the Jansenist Nicolas Le Gros, presented in 1772 by the founder of the first free school for deaf children to Françoise Arnaud, a pupil at the school.

    £1250

  11. LÉVI-STRAUSS, Claude.

    The Tupí-Cawahíb.

    Washington, United States Government Printing Office, 1948.

    A set of offprints of four articles by Lévi-Strauss from the Smithsonian’s Handbook of South American Indians, inscribed by the author. In each article Claude Lévy-Strauss (1908–2009) provides an illustrated introduction to an Amazonian group, recording their history, social and political...

    £300

  12. LIVY, Titus. 

    T. Livii Patauini […] ex XIIII Decadibus Historiae Romanae ab Urbe condita, Decades, prima, tertia, quarta,...

    Paris, [Michel Vascosan for] Oudin Petit, 1543 [– Michel Vascosan for himself and Oudin Petit, 1542]. 

    A much-praised edition of Livy’s History, reprinting Vascosan’s 1535 edition and including the philological corpus on Livy by the most established humanists of the time: Rhenanus, Gelenius, Grynaeus, Glareanus, Badius Ascensius, Valla, and Sabellico. 

    £3800

  13. [LOQUET, Marie-Françoise].

    Voyage de Sophie et d’Eulalie, au Palais du vrai bonheur; ouvrage pour servir de guide dans les voies...

    Paris, Charles-Pierre Berton, 1781.

    First edition of this rare utopian voyage written by a woman for a readership of women.

    £1500

  14. [LUXATION.]

    Sammelband of twenty-six works on dislocation.

    France, Germany, Italy, 1803–1882.

    A collection of twenty-six rare works relating to luxations, all once in the library of the Société de Chirurgie of Paris, several presented by their authors, and very few present in UK or US libraries.

    £750

  15. MACAULEY, Auley.

    A Sermon on the peculiar Advantages of Sunday Schools: preached in the Parish Church of St. Paul, Bedford, on...

    London, Printed for C. Dilly … and sold by the Booksellers of Bedford, Northampton, and Leicester, for the Benefit of the Institution. [1792].

    First edition of a rare sermon to promote Sunday Schools by the uncle of Thomas Babington Macaulay and brother of the abolitionist Zachary Macaulay.

    £250

  16. MADDOX, Isaac.

    A Sermon preach’d in the Parish-Church of Christ-Church, London; on Thursday April the 30th, 1741 being the Time...

    London, M. Downing, 1741.

    First edition, containing the often-lacking second part of the work, providing a tabular account of the charity schools in and around London and Westminster in 1741.

    £650

  17. MAKERETI (Maggie PAPAKURA).

    The old-time Maori … Collected and edited with a Biography by T.K. Penniman …

    London, Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1938.

    First edition, scarce, with a gift inscription: ‘To D.G. Bridson, In sincere appreciation of his kindness and trustfulness in lending me – a stranger – the script of his fascinating broadcast on the Maoris. W.S. Wrestier[?]’.

    £125

  18. MALCOLM, Alexander.

    A Treatise of Musick, speculative, practical and historical. Containing an explication of the philosophical...

    London, J. Osborn and T. Longman, F. Fayram, and E. Symon, 1730.

    First London edition of the first history of music in English by a British author; it is a reissue of the Edinburgh-printed first edition of 1721 with a cancel title-page and the dedication removed.

    £1100

  19. MARSDEN, William, translator.

    Memoirs of a Malayan family, written by themselves, and translated from the original by W....

    London, printed for the Oriental Translation Fund, sold by J. Murray and Parbury, Allen & Co., 1830.

    First edition, Sir Thomas Phillipps’s copy, of Marsden’s translation of an account of the travels and trials of a Malayan family trading pepper in Java and Sumatra in the 1750s and 1760s, including their encounters with the Dutch and British East India Companies.

    £1250

  20. MASTAI FERRETTI, Conte Paolino.

    Notizie storiche delle accademie d’Europa, con una relazione piu’ diffusa dell’accademia...

    Rome, I Lazzarini, 1792.

    Only edition, and a lovely copy, of this finely printed history of the academies of Europe, produced in honour of Pope Pius VI’s reestablishment of, and support for the Accademia nobile ecclesiastica (now the Pontifical Ecclesiastic Academy), which had been founded in 1701, was suppressed in 1764,...

    £850