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. CHARLES, King of Sweden and Norway, or OSCAR I (attrib. authors), and Friedrich Ernst FELLER (translator).

    Ueber die Banken. (Von einem schwedischen Fürsten). Deutsch von F....

    Leipzig, Goetz, 1843.

    First edition thus, scarce, of a treatise on banks, banking and money in Sweden in the crucial years from 1800 to 1842, probably a translation of Om banker; skrift meddelad i Conseljen den 15 augusti 1842, attributed to Karl XIV Johan by Linnström, Svenskt boklexikon. Humpert’s...

    £125

  2. CHERUBINI, Luigi.

    Autograph note signed ‘L. Cherubini’ regarding the cellist Auguste Franchomme.

    [Paris,] 19 December 1825.

    A short note in which the composer and director of the Conservatoire de Paris Luigi Cherubini records that ‘Mr. Franchomme’ has been admitted into the class of ‘Mr. Seuriot’ and that he will begin there on 22 December 1825.

    £350

  3. CHEVALIER, André-Joseph, professor; A.J. BERENTS, compiler.

    ‘Tractatus De Fide, Spe et Charitate Dictatus ab...

    [Douai, 9 March–4 August] 1787.

    A manuscript treatise concerning the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity as expounded in Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae, compiled by a student at the University of Douai from lectures by André-Joseph Chevalier.

    £375

  4. CHEVRET, Jean.

    Épitre a l’humanité et a la patrie en particulier, sur le bon ordre & l’idée de la véritable liberté. Suivie...

    [Paris?], au temple de la vérité, 1789.

    A good copy of this rare essay on the workings of society and the conditions required for human flourishing, by the controversialist and librarian Jean Chevret (1747-1820). After a brief letter addressed to humanity in general and France (even, perhaps, Chevret’s own home town of Meulan) in particular,...

    £275

  5. CHRYSOSTOM, John. 

    [Opera: Homeliae.]  Que in secundo Ioannis Chrisostomi volumine continentur: Super Mattheum homelie 89 …...

    Venice, Stagnino & de Gregoriis, 1503. 

    First edition of Chrysostom’s Opera omnia, the second volume (of two), annotated throughout by two critical readers. 

    £2800

  6. CHURCHILL, Winston S.

    A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Volume I: The Birth of Britain [– Volume II: The New World;...

    London, Cassel & Company Ltd, [1956; – 1956; – 1957; – 1958].

    First editions, with dust-jackets, of Churchill’s History of the English-Speaking Peoples, his last major historical work.

    £200

  7. CHURCHILL, Winston Spencer; F. RHODES, editor; Angus McNEILL, illustrator.

    The River War: An Historical Account...

    [London, Spottiswoode & Co. for] London, New York, & Bombay (Mumbai), Longmans, Green, & Co., 1899.

    First edition of Churchill’s second book, a history of Lord Kitchener’s conquest of Sudan in 1896-99 informed by his own service as both a cavalry officer and a war correspondent on the campaign, profusely illustrated with drawings and maps.

    £2500

  8. CICERO, Marcus Tullius.

    De Officiis … libri tres, ex editione Oliveti Parisiis vulgata.

    London, T. Payne, 1791.

    First Payne edition, edited by Henry Homer (1753–1791). A friend of the writer and schoolmaster Samuel Parr since his days at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Homer produced editions of Livy, Tacitus, Sallust, Pliny the Younger, and others.

    £450

  9. CICERO, Marcus Tullius.

    Marcus Tullius Ciceroes three Bookes of Duties to Marcus his Sonne, tourned out of Latine into English,...

    [London, Richard Tottel,] 1583.

    Sixth edition of Grimald’s Cicero, first published 1556. De Officiis was perhaps the most pervasive piece of classical writing in early modern Europe – the second or third book to be printed in Europe, standard reading in England from at least the sixteenth century, recommended in Eliot’s...

    £3200

  10. CLARENDON, Edward Hyde, Earl of

    The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, begun in the Year 1641.  With...

    Oxford, Printed at the Theater, 1702[–4]. 

    First edition of Clarendon’s monumental History of the Civil War, with a presentation inscription by his son Henry Hyde, the second Earl (1638–1709). 

    £3250

  11. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA (Titus Flavius CLEMENS); Gentian HERVET, translator.

    Omnia opera.

    Paris, Sebastien Nivelle, 1572.

    A thoroughly annotated copy of this early edition of the complete works of Clement of Alexandria, in the Latin translation of the theologian and humanist Gentian Hervet (or Hervetus, 1499–1584).

    £4750

  12. CLEVELAND, John.

    Clievelandi Vindiciae: or, Clieveland’s Genuine Poems, Orations, Epistles, &c. purged from the many false and...

    London, Printed for Nath. Brooke ... 1677

    First edition, the issue with Nathaniel Brooke’s imprint. This ‘vindicatory’ text was prepared by Cleveland’s former students John Lake and Samuel Drake from authentic manuscripts to restore true readings to poems that had degenerated through six editions of The Character of a London-Diurnall...

    £250

  13. [CLIFFORD, Jeronimy].

    The case of Jeronimy Clifford, merchant and planter of Surinam. Paper, No. 160.

    [London, n.p., 1711].

    First extended account of Clifford’s long-running legal battle with the Dutch West India Company in Surinam over Corcabo, his sugar plantation. The earlier publications had been just four pages long; this work furnishes us with plantation account details and testimonies, chronologically arranged with...

    £650

  14. CLIFFORD, Jeronimy.

    The case and replication of the legal representatives of Jeronimy Clifford; a British subject; and late merchant...

    London, C. Say, 1763.

    First edition of this comprehensive summary of Clifford’s long-running legal battle with the Dutch West India Company in Surinam over Corcabo, his sugar plantation, from the Macclesfield library, including a handsome folding ‘map of the colony of Surinam’.

    £850

  15. [COAL].

    The miner’s journal. Coal statistical register, for 1869… also, statistics of the iron trade… rates of wages… together...

    Pottsville, PA, Miners’ Journal Office, 1869.

    First edition, rare. A synopsis of the trade, transportation and activities connected with coal between Pennsylvania and New York. The Miner’s Journal tracked the pulse of American coal trade, including importations of foreign coal and exports of domestic material. It prided itself on circulating ‘more...

    £125

  16. COBDEN-SANDERSON, Annie; Marianne TIDCOMBE, editor.

    The Prison Diary of Annie Cobden-Sanderson, with a Facsimile of the Original.

    [Marlborough,] Libanus Press, 2017.

    The imprisonment of Annie Cobden-Sanderson, daughter of the famous Victorian statesman Richard Cobden, prompted a wave of letters of protest to the newspapers, giving the women’s suffrage campaign the major boost she had hoped for. The ten women with whom Cobden-Sanderson was arrested (and of whom...

    £25

  17. [COCHRAN, Charles B.]

    OSTROWSKA, Wanda and Viola G. GARVIN. London’s Glory.

    London, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1945.

    First edition, a poignant collection of paintings of war-torn London by the Polish artist-in-exile Wanda Ostrowska, accompanied by extracts from her own writings and narrative by Viola Garvin.

    £75

  18. [COLOGNE and KOBLENZ.]

    Three hotel advertising cards with lithographic city views.

    [Cologne and Koblenz, c. 1870.]

    An attractive group of advertising cards for three Rhine-front hotels in Cologne and Koblenz, each with a lithographic view of the river and city.

    £100

  19. [COLVIL, Samuel.]

    ‘Mock Poem, or Whiggs Supplication Part ii’.

    1670s?

    A fine early manuscript of the second part of Colvil’s rollicking ‘Scottish Hudibras’, a satire on Scots Presbyterianism and sectarian wrangling between non-conformists in general. It circulated widely in manuscript before its first publication in 1681, when Colvil complained of ‘Transcribers,...

    £1250