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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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
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[LE GUERCHOIS, Madeleine d’Aguesseau, Madame.]
Avis d’une mere a son fils.
Paris, Desaint & Saillant, 1743.
A popular work of maternal advice, in a simple vellum binding richly decorated by the master calligrapher Francois Nicolas Bédigis (1738–1814).
£2750
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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
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[LILY, William.]
A short introduction of grammar generally to be used; compiled and set forth for the bringing up of all those...
Oxford, Sheldonian Theatre, 1709.
Later editions (likely issued together) of two Latin grammars ascribed to the great grammarian and schoolmaster William Lily (1468?–1522/1523).
£350
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[LINCOLN, Abraham, and Stephen DOUGLAS.]
Political Debates between Hon. Abraham Lincoln and Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, in...
Columbus, Follet, Foster, and Company, 1860.
First edition, later issue, with a rule above the printer’s names on the copyright page and advertisements stating fifteen thousand copies sold, of the Lincoln–Douglas Senate campaign debates of 1858, ‘historically the most important series of American political debates’ (Howes), our...
£950
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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
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[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 to the Palace of True Happiness, written by a woman for a readership of women, our copy with the eighteenth-century ownership inscription of a female reader.
£1500
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[LORD LEYCESTER HOSPITAL, WARWICK.]
Account of the Charity of Leicester’s Hospital. Its Foundation & Endowment, Government, Former...
Warwick, mid-nineteenth century.
A manuscript copy of the sixteenth-century statues of the Lord Leycester Hospital, an almshouse founded by Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, for impoverished or ageing former soldiers wounded in service.
£350
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LUCAS, John.
'Select and Original Pieces written at Mr Sigston’s Academy.' Queen Square, Leeds.
Leeds, 1816 [–1817].
A handsomely illustrated manuscript on a variety of themes, produced as weekly exercises in penmanship by a pupil at Sigston’s Methodist boarding school in Leeds.
£1375
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[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
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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
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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
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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
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MARSILIUS of Inghen, GILES of Rome, and ALBERT of Saxony.
Marsilii de genera[tione et corruptione]. Commentaria fidelissimi...
[(Colophon:) Venice, [Boneto Locatello for] the heirs and partners of Ottaviano Scoto, 19 June 1520.]
A trio of late thirteenth- and fourteenth-century commentaries on Aristotle’s books on generation and corruption, composed at the University of Paris by Giles of Rome, Marsilius of Inghen, and Albert of Saxony, demonstrating the international nature of medieval scholarship.
£1500
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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
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[MEDICAL DICTIONARY.]
Dictionary of medical terms, Latin-English wordlist, and list of abbreviations and contractions.
[S.l., early 1800s].
An interesting manuscript compiled by an anonymous medical student, comprising a dictionary of medical terms, from ‘Abdomen’ to ‘Zoster’, followed by a glossary of Latin terms with their English equivalents (including ‘Machina electrica – the electric machine’), and ending with a...
£450
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MELCHIOR, Christian.
‘Synechia sive summa lectionum Plutarchicarum a domino conrectore huius scholae Salderianae praelectarum. ...
[Brandenburg an der Havel, 1620.]
An unpublished early seventeenth-century manuscript recording lectures on Plutarch’s pedagogical work On the Education of Children, bound with a scarce printed edition of the same text, and a rare edition of the poems of Theognis and other Greek lyric poets, each with numerous marginal and...
£6500
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MILBANK, Augustus Sussex.
A Treatise upon the political & social Condition of Europe, from the Fall of the Roman Empire, down to...
[Richmond, M. Bell for] London, Messrs Hatchard & Son, and Richmond, M. Bell, 1847.
First and only edition of a rare Yorkshire-printed treatise of social history by an amateur historian and educational enthusiast, inscribed by the author to the Countess of Sandwich.
£125
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MILLAR, John.
Observations concerning the distinction of ranks in society. Under the following heads: 1. Of the ranks and condition...
London, Murray, 1773.
Second London edition, ‘greatly enlarged’, first published 1771. The first section of Millar’s book is a study of matrilineal ‘savage’ societies, in which early social development counts most when it comes to kinship with the mother, is remarkably prescient (see Morgan, Systems)....
£1450
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MILL, John Stuart, and Edward Livingston YOUMANS.
Новѣйшее образованiе: его истинныя цѣли и требованiя....
St Petersburg, Izdanie “Russkoi knizhnoi torgovli”, 1867.
First edition in Russian of these two works, published in the original that same year.
£100