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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STACEY, George et al.
Daguerreotype and ambrotype portraits of Stacey and members of his family.
London, 1850s.
A handsome set of photographs of the English Quaker and abolitionist George Stacey (1787-1857), his second wife Mary née Barclay (1797-1876) and members of their extended family, taken by some of the finest portraitists in England at that time.
£7500
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STATUTA COLLEGII DD.
Almae Urbis Medicorum ex antiquis Romanorum Pontificum bullis congesta, & hactenùs per Sedem Apostolicam...
Rome, Printer of the Apostolic Chamber, 1676 [– c.1745].
The very rare enlarged and updated issue of the statutes of the medical faculty of Rome, a very rare and interesting document on its internal organization.
£550
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STAUNFORD [Stanford], William, Sir.
Les Plees del Coron, Divisees in Plusors Titles & Comon Lieux. Per Queux Home Pluis Redement...
[London], Richard Tottell, 1583.
The definitive edition, and that owned by Thomas Jefferson, of the first book devoted entirely to criminal law. First published posthumously in 1557 and based on Bracton and the Year Books, Les Plees deals in turn with offences, jurisdiction, appeals, indictments and defences. The third...
£2500
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SWIFT, Jonathan.
A Tale of a Tub … to which is added, an Account of a Battle between the antient and modern Books in St. James’s...
London, C. Bathurst, 1751.
A scarce later edition of Swift’s classic satires on corruption in religion and learning, as exemplified in the conduct of Peter (Roman Catholicism), Martin (Luther), and Jack (Calvin) in the Tale of the Tub, and the spirited fight over the highest peak of Parnassus in the Battel of...
£175
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[SYPHILIS.]
Della tabe dorsale ovvero della cura della consunzione negli uomini e nelle donne con la spiegazione de’ sintomi,...
Venice, Graziosi, 1785.
First Italian translation, uncommon, of Tabes dorsalis: or, the cause of consumption in young men and women, by ‘a Physician of Bristol’.
£135
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TAYLOR, Alfred Swaine.
On the Processes for detecting Blood in medico-legal Cases.
[London, Guy’s Hospital Reports, 1870.]
Taylor’s own offprint of this interesting article on detecting blood ‘for the purposes of pathology and legal medicine’, in which he publishes, for the first time, a description of the spectroscopic process developed by the eminent microscopist and geologist Henry Clifton Sorby (1826–1908),...
£350
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TOCQUEVILLE, Alexis de, and Gustave de BEAUMONT.
Du système pénitentiaire aux États-Unis, et de son application en France, suivi...
Paris, H. Fournier jeune, 1833.
First edition of de Tocqueville’s forerunner to Democracy in America. A detailed report on the innovative penitentiary system in the young United States, Du système pénitentiaire was published by Tocqueville and Beaumont after their observational tour of North America at the behest of the July Monarchy....
£650
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[TODESCHI, Claudio.]
Lettere filosofiche dirette alla nobil donna la signora baronessa Laura Astalli Piccolomini sotto il nome di Clori.
Rome, Giovanni Zempel, 1783.
Extremely rare first edition of these four verse letters by Claudio Todeschi (b. 1737) addressed to baroness Laura Astalli Piccolomini, his fellow member of the Accademia degli Arcadi. Known as 'Clori', Laura was a soprano and one of the last surviving members of the noble Roman family the Astallis;...
£475
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[TOYNBEE, Arnold.]
“Progress and poverty,” a criticism of Mr. Henry George. Being two lectures delivered in St. Andrew’s...
London, Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1883.
First edition of the transcript of two lectures delivered in 1883 by the social reformer and political economist Arnold Toynbee (1852–1883) criticising Henry George’s Progress and Poverty (1879).
£50
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VENERONI, Giovanni.
The Complete Italian Master; containing the best and easiest Rules for attaining that Language … Newly...
London, J. Nourse, 1763.
First edition thus, revising an earlier translation of Le maitre italien of 1711, which was not only ‘out of print’ but ‘in many respects inaccurate’ (Preface). The translator’s preface acknowledges the work of foreign editors since the second edition of 1729 and describes some...
£750
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[VIRGIL.] RAMUS, Petrus (Pierre de la RAMÉE).
...
Paris, André Wechel, 1564.
Second editions of Ramus’s extensive commentaries on Virgil’s two poems on country life, written in reaction to the dry doctrines of several French schools who based their teaching of nature on Aristotle’s Physics. Ramus wanted to keep in contact with the concrete realities of nature...
£950
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WALKER, Francis Amasa.
Discussions in Economics and Statistics.
New York, Henry Holt and Company, 1899.
First edition of this collection edited by Professor Dewey of more than fifty articles by Francis Amasa Walker, some published here for the first time, classified under the heads of Statistics, National Growth, Social Economics, Finance and Taxation, Money and Bimetallism, and Economy Theory.
£350
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[WALLOON CHURCH AMSTERDAM.]
Ordres et reglemens de la maison des orphelins, des vieillards, et des vielles femmes de l’eglise...
Amsterdam, David Pierre Humbert, 1772.
Very rare set of regulations governing the charitable house for orphans and the elderly founded by the Walloon Church in Amsterdam in 1631, with manuscript additions updating the lists of its male and female governors up to 1795.
£1450
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[WARD, Edward, and VOLTAIRE.]
The Humourous and Diverting Story of Two Sailors, Who, in order to recruit their Stock of...
6, Punderson’s-Place, Bethnal-Green-Road’, [c. 1800?].
Seemingly unrecorded edition of this humorous chapbook tale of two penniless sailors who turn to piracy in an attempt to pay their rent, printed with a translation of Voltaire’s Memnon and the anonymous poem ‘Clara’.
£450
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WELLS, Edward.
The young Gentleman’s Astronomy, Chronology, and Dialling, containing such Elements of the said Arts or Sciences,...
London, James & John Knapton, 1725.
Third edition of Wells’s successful mathematical handbook.
£350
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[WESLEY, John (editor).]
Excerpta ex Ovidio, Virgilio, Horatio, Juvenali, Persio, et Martiali: in usum juventutis Christianae....
Bristol, typis F. Farley, 1749.
First edition of one of the textbooks that Wesley compiled for the school that he founded at Kingswood, Bristol, in 1748. Finding contemporary textbooks inadequate, he published an astonishing number of works for his pupils – grammars, editions of classics, and other introductions to learning....
£1100
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WETZELL, Madame.
Les Matinées de la poupée, ou récréations d’une petite fille.
Paris, J. Langlumé, [1844?].
First and only edition, very rare, of a delightful illustrated account of a girl’s doll. Brillantine, a doll, is given to Célénie for company while her elder sister Alméa is in Africa; the book recounts in detail their relationship over the course of a week, from Brillantine’s arrival with...
£275
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WEYLAND, John.
Observations on Mr. Whitbread’s Poor Bill, and on the Population of England: intended as a supplement to A Short...
London, J. Hatchard, 1807.
First edition of each work. The barrister John Weyland (1774–1854) ‘was a well-to-do man whose landed possessions were extensive enough for him to be a magistrate in three counties, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Surrey’ (James, p. 372). In 1807, he wrote two works supporting the poor laws, entitled...
£2800
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WILLICH, Anthony Florian Madinger.
Lectures on Diet and Regimen: being a systematic Inquiry into the most rational Means of preserving...
London: Printed for T. N. Longman and O. Rees … 1799.
Second edition, much revised and expanded, printed in the same year as the first: ‘Many important and useful articles have been added, especially in the fifth Chapter, “Of Food and Drink.”’ Willich’s very popular manual was based on a series of lecture given by the eminent physician at Bath...
£375
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[WINCHESTER COLLEGE.]
Printed and manuscript election roll.
[Winchester,] ‘1 November 1782’.
A remarkable eighteenth-century part-printed election roll from Winchester College, with admissions, the names of scholars, prize-winners, and pupils elected to New College Oxford.
£1250