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.

  1. SISMONDI, J. C. L. Simonde de.

    Nouveaux principes d’économie politique,...

    Paris, Delaunay, Treuttel & Wurtz, 1819.

    First edition. ‘A number of concepts...

    £850

  2. SMITH, Albert Richard.

    The new Game of the Ascent of Mont Blanc.

    London, printed by Hall, 43, South Molton...

    Rare first edition of this attractive board...

    £3750

  3. SMITH, Robert. 

    The Universal Directory for taking alive...

    London, printed for the author, 1768. 

    First edition of a guide to catching and...

    £500

  4. SMITH, William.

    The Speeches of Mr. Smith, of South Carolina,...

    Philadelphia printed, London reprinted...

    First London edition, a rebuff to the punitive...

    £175

  5. [SOUTH AND CENTRAL AMERICAN COINAGE.]

    The King’s Assay Master’s Report, with...

    [London, 1834].

    Three tables of coinage weights and fineness...

    £250

  6. [SPENCE, Joseph.] Nicholas TINDAL.

    A Guide to classical Learning: or, Polymetis...

    London, J. Dodsley, 1777.

    Second illustrated edition (fourth overall)...

    £250

  7. SPENCER, Herbert.

    The Study of Sociology. [The International...

    New York, Appleton, 1874.

    First edition thus, the first American...

    £100

  8. SPILBERGEN, Joris van, and Jacob LE MAIRE.

    Speculum orientalis occidentalisque Indiae...

    Leiden, Nicolaes van Geelkercken, 1619.

    First Latin edition of one of the classic...

    £20000

  9. SPURZHEIM, Johann Gaspar.

    A View of the elementary Principles of...

    Boston, Marsh Capen and Lyon, 1832.

    First American edition (first Edinburgh,...

    £125

  10. SSYL’NYM I ZAKLIUCHENNYM.

    St. Petersburg, [Vol’naia Tipografiia...

    Rare first edition of this anthology of...

    £350

  11. STACEY, George et al.

    Daguerreotype and ambrotype portraits of...

    London, 1850s.

    A handsome set of photographs of the English...

    £7500

  12. [STANHOPE, Hester Lucy, Lady.] [MERYON, Charles Lewis, editor.]

    Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope, as...

    London, [Frederick Shoberl for] Henry...

    First edition, the entertaining memoirs...

    £650

  13. STATUTA COLLEGII DD.

    Almae Urbis Medicorum ex antiquis Romanorum...

    Rome, Printer of the Apostolic Chamber,...

    The very rare enlarged and updated issue...

    £550

  14. STAUNFORD [Stanford], William, Sir.

    Les Plees del Coron, Divisees in Plusors...

    [London], Richard Tottell, 1583.

    The definitive edition, and that owned...

    £2500

  15. STEPNIAK, Sergey. 

    דאָס אינטערערדישע רוסלאַנד...

    New York, Maks N. Maisel, 1921. 

    Scarce first American edition in Yiddish...

    £150

  16. STEPNIAK, Sergius [pseudonym for: Sergius Mikhailovich Kravchinskii].

    Podziemna Rosja. Obrazki z przeszłości...

    Lviv, [ printers of the Dziennika Polskiego]...

    Extremely rare first edition in Polish,...

    £100

  17. STETSON, Charlotte Perkins [later GILMAN].

    Women and Economics: A Study of the economic...

    London and Boston, G. P. Putnam’s...

    Third edition, first published in 1898,...

    £95

  18. STOURM, Auguste-African, dit Eugène.

    Opinion sur la question des sucres.

    [Paris, Bourgogne & Martinet, n. d.,...

    First and only edition of this work on...

    £100

  19. [STRASBOURG.]

    Souscription patriotique de la part du...

    [S.l., s.n., 1789?.]

    Rare first edition of this entertaining...

    £165

  20. STRYPE, John.

    The Life of the learned Sir John Cheke,...

    London, John Wyat, 1705.

    First edition of Strype’s biography of...

    £450