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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PIECK, Henri C.
10 Dagen Die De Wereld Deden Wankelen.
Amsterdam, Skovino, 1927.
A rare lithograph of Pieck’s dramatic illustration for Ten Days that Shook the World (October in English), a silent film commissioned by the Soviet government to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the October Revolution. Made by the director of Battleship Potemkin (1925), Sergei Eisenstein, the...
£300
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ALBERTI, Rafael.
13 Bandas y 48 estrellas. Poema del Mar Caribe.
Madrid, Manuel Altolaguirre, 1936.
First edition of these thirteen poems by the Spanish Marxist poet Rafael Alberti (1902–1999), one for each stripe on the American flag, condemning a nation that ‘once was the symbol of democracy and which has gradually become the symbol of imperialism’ (p. 35, trans.).
£650
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[LOO, Pieter van, attributed.]
156 watercolours of flowers, plants, and fruits.
[Holland, c. 1760–80].
A truly stunning collection of over 150 original eighteenth-century botanical watercolours, attributed to the noted Dutch botanical artist Pieter van Loo (1731–1784).
£100000
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BOLAÑO, Roberto.
2666.
Barcelona, Editorial Anagrama, [2004].
First edition of the Chilean writer’s last novel, the major preoccupation of the last five years of his life.
£500
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FARIS, Ahmad.
Abdaʻ ma-kan fi suwar Salitan Al ʻUthman … Album des souverains Ottomans édité par Selim Faris Effendy directeur...
Leipzig, Carl Garte, [c. 1885].
A handsome set of portraits of thirty-four Ottoman Sultans from Osman I, founder of the Ottoman Empire, to Abdul Hamid II, who reigned from 1876 to 1909, this copy annotated with notes in Arabic.
£3500
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KRUG, Leopold.
Abriss der Staatsökonomie oder Staatswirthschaftslehre ...
Berlin, Realschulbuchhandlung, 1808.
Rare first edition. Krug was a civil servant whose writings on political economy and statistics had to be carved out of ‘the odd spare hour’. From 1805 to 1834 he was heavily involved in the development and expansion of the Prussian Statistical Bureau, during which time he conducted numerous statistical...
£250
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[AQUHORTIES.]
Abstract of the Rules and Regulations for the Students in the College of Aquhorties …
Edinburgh, Printed by J. Moir, Paterson’s Court, [1799?].
Broadside rules for the newly established Aquhorties College, the only Roman Catholic college in Scotland, presumably designed to be posted up around the school.
£850
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HODSON, Thomas.
The Accomplished Tutor; or, complete System of liberal Education … Embellished with twenty Copper-plates and...
London, H. D. Symonds, and Vernor and Hood, 1802.
Second edition, revised, of a voluminous catch-all schoolbook (first published 1800), by Thomas Hodson, of the Middle Temple.
£300
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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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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
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HOWARD, John.
An Account of the Principal Lazarettos in Europe; with various Papers relative to the Plague: together with further...
Warrington, Eyres, Cadell, Johnson, Dilly and Taylor, 1789.
First edition of Howard’s study of quarantine hospitals for victims of infectious diseases throughout Europe. This work, illustrated with 22 plans and views of hospitals, was the continuation of Howard’s investigative reporting which had begun when he served as High Sheriff, with his State of...
£575
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[BANK OF SCOTLAND.]
Act of Parliament for erecting a Bank in Scotland. Edinburgh, July 17 1695.
Edinburgh, printed by the heirs and successors of Andrew Anderson, 1695.
Very rare edition of the Act of Parliament establishing Scotland’s first and oldest bank, founded just one year after the Bank of England.
£650
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HOPKINS, William.
Address delivered at the Hull Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, September...
London, Taylor & Francis, 1853.
First edition, an 1853 Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science by its President William Hopkins (1793–1866), inscribed by the author and given to his erstwhile student Francis Galton (1822–1911). A mathematician and geologist, Hopkins became President of the British Association...
£350
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BERGERET, [Guillaume].
Advertisement of M. Bergeret, Bookseller.
[Bordeaux, c. 1787.]
A very rare advertisement card of a provincial bookseller from Bordeaux, a scarce piece of trade ephemera.
£75
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MILL, John Stuart, and Jánosi FERENCZ (translator).
A képviseleti kormány.
Pest, Emich Gusztáv Tulajdona, 1867.
First Hungarian edition of Considerations on representative Government, Mill’s most important political work after On Liberty. In his major work on political institutions Mill ‘discusses to what extent forms of government are a matter of choice, the criterion of a “good form of government”, and...
£875
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[ALDERLEY EDGE.]
Alderley Edge and its Neighbourhood.
Macclesfield, J. Swinnerton, [1843].
First edition of this locally printed collection of legends, people, and sites of interest around Alderley Edge, Cheshire, with an inscription to the library of the (later Royal) Archaeological Institute from the Institute’s principal founder Albert Way.
£175
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[HEMSTERHUIS, François.]
Alexis ou de l’age d’or.
Riga, Johann Friedrich Hartknoch, 1787.
First edition of Hemsterhuis’s philosophical dialogue on a ‘golden age’, an influential work of pre-Romantic aesthetics.
£375
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ROSINI, Giovanni.
Alla memoria di Maria Antinori vedova del Marchese Consalvi di Macerata morta improvvisamente la sera del XIV...
Pisa, Niccolò Capurro, 1852.
Scarce first and only edition of this poem in memory of Maria Antinori, widow of the Marchese Consalvi, on her death at the age of thirty-five, penned by the poet, playwright, historical novelist, art historian, and art collector Giovanni Rosini (1776–1855), this copy presented by the author to the...
£275
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GABARO, Antonio.
Alla pregiatissima Signora Domenica Schiavon Menato nella fausta occasione del suo primo parto, in argomento...
Padua, ‘Nella Tipografia del Seminario’, 1820.
First and only edition, very rare, of a scathing and sexist condemnation of ‘inhuman’ women who do not breastfeed their own children, dedicated to Domenica Schiavon Menato, ‘an example to all women’, on the occasion of the birth of her first child.
£380
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[NAPOLEONIC ITALY.]
Alla società delle gentilissime signore di Moncalieri dilettanti del giuoco del tavolazzo. Sonetto bernesco-morale...
Turin, Giacomo Fea, 1799.
An unrecorded sonnet addressed to the to the female players of tavolazzo – a Piedmontese sport along the lines of target shooting – at the Society of the Gentlewomen of Moncalieri; the rules of the sport would be formally laid out in 1780.
£375