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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[WALLPAPER BINDING.]
‘Chassereau des Biens et Rentes deves a joseph Paul Roegier et marie margu te [sic] Bourdeau son espouse,...
Hainaut, 1750–1773.
A manuscript account book compiled by Joseph Paul Roegier and his son, recording receipts over a quarter-century, in an attractive and unusual binding reusing a large fragment of gilt leather wallpaper.
£3500
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[WALL, Thomas].
A Second Christian Warning-Piece; wherein is shewed the first and chief Cause of Englands present Misery … Humbly...
London, 1681-2.
First edition, very rare, of a vehement anti-Catholic tract published in the context of the Exclusion Crisis; bound with the principal astrological work of John Holwell (a slightly imperfect copy).
£1750
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WALRAS, Auguste.
Théorie de la richesse sociale ou résumé des principes fondamentaux de l’économie politique.
Paris, Guillaumin et C.ie, 1849.
Three first editions, including the first appearance of the work which strongly influenced the work of French mathematical economist Léon Walras (1834–1910): his father Auguste’s Theory of Social Wealth.
£1750
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WALRAS, Léon.
Études d’économie sociale (Théorie de la Répartition de la Richesse sociale).
Lausanne and Paris, Rouge and Pichon & Durand-Auzias, 1936.
This, the second, definitive edition differs from the first (1896) in containing the ‘Souvenirs du Congrès de Lausanne’. The congress on taxation in Lausanne in 1860, at which Walras read a paper, was a climacteric in his career. In the audience was Louis Ruchonnet, who later became chief of the...
£100
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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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[WASHINGTON, George.] PAINE, Thomas.
An Eulogy on the Life of General George Washington, who died at Mount Vernon, December 14th,...
Newburyport, Edmund M. Blunt, 1800.
First edition of this eulogy on Washington, ‘the saviour of your country’ and ‘father of his people’. This is the issue with urn woodcut on the final verso. Thomas Paine (1773–1811, not to be confused with the author of Common Sense) later changed his name to that of his father,...
£250
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WEBER, Johann Adam.
Discursus curiosi et fructuosi [ad praecipuas totius litteraturae humanae scientias illustrandas accommodate …].
[Salzburg, Johann Baptist Mayr, 1690.]
Third Salzburg edition of Weber’s wide-ranging discourses, in a handsome Bavarian binding for the Abbot of Ettal, Bernhard I Oberhauser, attributable to the monk Brother Gregor, a trained bookbinder from Hungary.
£6000
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[WEST INDIES – DENMARK.]
The Danish laws: or, the code of Christian the Fifth. Faithfully translated for the use of the English...
London, N. Gibson, 1756.
First English translation of the parts of Christian V’s Danske Lov of 1683 that were relevant to the inhabitants of the Danish West Indies (the present-day U.S. Virgin Islands, plus the islands of St Thomas, St John, and St Croix).
£850
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[WESTMINSTER ELECTION.]
A True and impartial Collection of Pieces, in Prose and Verse, which have been written and published on...
London: Printed for W. Owen … 1749.
First edition of a compilation of open letters to the electorate of Westminster, written during the violent 1749 election campaign.
£750
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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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WHITTAKER, Roger, and Natalie WHITTAKER.
So far, so good. The autobiography of a wandering Minstrel.
London, Colombus Books, 1986.
Limited edition, copy no. 9 (of an unspecified number), in a special binding, inscribed ‘To Mom & Dad with all our love Roger x’.
£250
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[WILLIAMS, John.]
The History of the Gunpowder-Treason, collected from approved Authors, as well popish as protestant.
London, Richard Chiswel, 1678.
First edition of an anti-popish history of the Gunpowder Plot. A well informed account drawing on both Anglican and Catholic sources, The History of the Gunpowder-Treason was published anonymously by John Williams (1633/6–1709), later Bishop of Chichester, amid renewed interest in the subject during...
£750
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[WILSON,] Thomas, Bishop of Sodor and Man.
A short and plain Instruction for the better Understanding of the Lord’s Supper,...
London, B. Dod, T. Longman & C. Hitch, J. Hodges, and J. & J. Rivington, 1755.
Scarce first posthumous edition of this liturgical manual by Thomas Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man, with two early female owners.
£250
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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
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[WISHART, George.]
I. G. de rebus auspiciis serenssimi, & potentissimi Caroli Dei gratia Magnae Brittanniae, Franciae & Hiberniae...
[Amsterdam or The Hague,] 1647.
First edition, rare, a fine-paper copy in a handsome binding, of an account of the campaign of James Graham, Marquess of Montrose, against the Covenanters in 1644−46, a copy of which was strung around Montrose’s neck when he was hanged.
£1750
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[WOMEN-PEARLS.]
De Vrouwen-Peirle, ofte dryvoudige historie van Helena de Verduldige, Griseldis de Zagtmoedige, en Florentina de...
Ghent, J. Begyn, [1780–1810].
An attractive copy of the ‘Women-pearls’, a Flemish chapbook portraying three remarkable women – Helena the Patient, Griselda the Meek, and Florentina the Faithful – and their marvellous stories derived from medieval romances, featuring seduction, amputation, and narrowly-avoided incest.
£550
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YRVEN, Marcelle.
La comédienne et le féminisme.
Paris, L. Pichon, 1914.
First edition of this feminist work on the necessity of a thorough literary and cultural education for women in theatre, by the celebrated actress Marcelle Yrven, presented to the editor-in-chief of Le Figaro’s literary supplement.
£250
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[ZATTA, Antonio.]
Il filosofo del nord, ovvero Corso di morale filosofia.
‘Londra’ [i.e. Venice], [Zatta], 1788.
First edition under this title of this course of moral philosophy, broadly construed, in which the author attempts to invoke the authority of the ‘philosophers of the North’ (inter alia Hobbes, Bacon, Clark, and Addison on one side of the English Channel, Bayle, Pascal, La Mettrie, Grotius,...
£950
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ZECH, Franz Xaver.
Hierarchia ecclesiastica, ad Germaniae Catholicae principia et usum delineata.
Ingolstadt, Schleig, 1750.
First edition of a comprehensive exposition of the prerogatives, duties, jurisdiction, authority and responsibilities of the secular and regular German Catholic clergy. Forty tituli set out the legal profiles and relative hierarchy of pope, patriarchs, cardinals, envoys, bishops, canons, members of religious...
£175
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ZOSIMUS.
The New History of Count Zosimus, sometime Advocate of the Treasury pf the Roman Empire. With the Notes of the Oxford...
London, Joseph Hindmarsh, 1684.
First edition of this anonymous translation of the Historia nova, translated from the Oxford text of 1679 (an edition that Gibbon owned). Zosimus’s history of the Roman Empire covers the period from Augustus to 410 AD (the sack of Rome by the Visigoths). For the fourth century and the...
£950