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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. 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

  2. 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

  3. 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

  4. LE PLAY, Frédéric.

    Les ouvriers européens. Tome premier [-6me].

    Tours, Alfred Mame et Fils, 1879. 

    Second, greatly enlarged edition. This groundbreaking, comprehensive work of sociology, which examines the working condition, domestic life and psychological aspects of European workers, had appeared in its first form in 1855 a single volume. ‘Since public opinion was not yet ready to accept...

    £750

  5. 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

  6. LEVI-STRAUSS, Claude.

    Le Père Noël supplicié.

    [Paris, Chantenay, 1952.]

    Rare first separate appearance, a presentation copy, of Lèvi-Strauss’s article ‘Father Christmas tortured’, an ethnological analysis of French ecclesiastical authorities’ disapproval of the ‘paganisation’ of Father Christmas, describing the hanging and burning of an effigy at Dijon just...

    £250

  7. [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

  8. [LINCOLN, Abraham, and Stephen DOUGLAS.]

    Political Debates between Hon. Abraham Lincoln and Hon. Stephen A. Douglas,...

    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

  9. 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

  10. [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

  11. [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

  12. 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

  13. LUCIAN of Samosata; Étienne MOQUOT, editor.

    Luciani Samosatensis dialogi selecti. Cum nova versione et notis. Ab uno e...

    Lyons, Claude Obert, 1636.

    Uncommon parallel Greek and Latin edition of selected dialogues by the second-century satirist Lucian, edited by the French Jesuit Étienne Moquot (1570–1625?) for use in Jesuit schools.

    £375

  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. 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

  18. MALTHUS, Thomas Robert.

    An Essay on the Principle of Population; or, a View of its past and present Effects on human Happiness;...

    London, Johnson, 1803.

    Second edition, first published 1798. Called the ‘Great Quarto’, it is the first to bear Malthus’s name and is so revised by Malthus as to be ‘regarded by [him] as a substantially new work’ (ODNB).

    £5750

  19. MALTHUS, T. R.

    An Essay on the Principle of Population; or, a View of its past and present Effects on human Happiness; with an...

    London, John Murray, 1817.

    Fifth edition, ‘with important additions’, of one of the most influential works in the history of economic thought, a handsome copy owned and possibly annotated by the economist and industrialist Robert Hyde Greg, a critic of Malthus’s.

    £2200

  20. 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