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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BELLONI, Girolami, Marchese.
Del Commercio dissertazione.
Rome, Niccolo and Marco Pagliarini, 1757.
Second edition to be authorized by Belloni, (first, 1750) – the first edition to include the author’s considerations on ‘imaginary money’ (pp. 135-154) – of a work notable for its argument in favour of restrictions on the export of money by the Vatican banker Girolamo Belloni (1688–1760)....
£300
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PAGNINI, Giovanni Francesco; Francesco BALDUCCI PEGOLOTTI; Giovanni da UZZANO.
Della decima e di varie altre gravezze imposte dal...
Lisbon and Lucca, (vols. 3–4: ‘e si vende da Giuseppe Bouchard librajo francese in Firenze’), 1765–66.
First edition, scarce on the market, of a highly important work in the history of economics and world trade. Pagnini (1714–89) worked in the financial department of the Tuscan government and published translations of several of Locke’s works. The Della decima is his most important work, giving...
£5500
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GIOJA, Melchiorre.
Del merito e delle ricompense, trattato storico e filosofico ...
Filadelfia, [n. p.], 1830 (vol. I); Lugano, Giuseppe Ruggia, 1830 (vol. II).
Second edition (first published in 1818, a third followed in 1832) of this important work by the political theorist, economist, and champion of Italian unity, Gioja (1767–1829). ‘He contended in his best known work, Del merito e delle ricompense ..., which was inspired by Beccaria’s Dei delitti...
£250
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[PASCOLI, Livio.] ‘Vilio LOCASPI’.
Del modo di mantenere abolita la mendicità, discorso familiare.
Verona, Mainardi, 1817.
Only edition, very rare, of this proposal for the abolition of begging, and of poverty more broadly, by the poet and essayist Livio Pascoli.
£285
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CALVERT, William John.
The demand for labour is wealth … Supplement to monopoly and taxation vindicated against the errors of...
Newark, M. Hage and London, Longman … 1822.
Very rare first edition of Calvert’s supplement to his own work, Monopoly and taxation vindicated etc., published in 1821. Calvert wrote anonymously in the name of ‘a Nottinghamshire farmer’, but here uses his name. The supplement argues that Britain’s wealth and military success against France...
£250
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WEBER, Max.
Der Sozialismus.
Vienna, Phobus, Pimmer, 1918.
First edition of Weber’s early and influential lecture articulating the author’s sceptical view on socialism.
£300
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[LE MERCIER DE LA RIVIÈRE, Pierre Paul].
Die glückliche Nation, oder der Staat von Felizien. Ein Muster der vollkommensten Freyheit...
Leipzig, Voss, 1794.
Very rare first German edition of Le Mercier de la Rivière’s physiocratic utopia L’heureuse nation, ou Relation du gouvernement des Féliciens, which had first appeared in French in 1792.
£1250
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RENTSCH, Carl, Edler von Ehrenthal.
Die Staatswirtschaft nach Naturgesetzen.
Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1819.
First edition. Rentsch’s political economy offers an in-depth analysis of concepts such as income and expenditure, value and cost, market value, and competition; particular attention is paid to coin, notes, circulation, public and private credit, and exchange.
£150
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BODEMER, Heinrich.
Die Wirkungen der Creditpapiere in Bezug die Vehmehrung der Banken in Deutschland.
Leipzig, Heinrich Hubner, 1853.
First edition of a rare German treatise on banking, money, paper money and credit. Bodemer argues for a bettering and widening of credit in Prussia at a crucial time of its economic development, where both production and trade required ever more more advanced, unified and modern financial tools.
£125
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PICK, G. Vesian.
Digest of political economy: the principles of John Stuart Mill.
London, Swan Sonnerschein & Co., 1893.
Second edition (first 1892) of Pick’s epitome of J.S. Mill’s Principles of political economy. Stating his aim as to ‘present a bird’s-eye view of Political Economy’, with a secondary intent of being used by students as a companion volume to the treatise itself, Pick aims to bring a new simplicity...
£100
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VALERIANI MOLINARI, Luigi.
Discorsi concernenti la pubblica economia il gius pubblico e l’antico gius romano.
Bologna, Masi, 1809.
First edition of Valeriani’s (1758–1828) rare work of political economy presented as a science which stands as an organic complement to a nation’s set of legislation.
£750
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PAXTON, P[eter].
A Discourse concerning the Nature, Advantage, and Improvement of Trade: with some Considerations why the Charges...
London, printed by E. P. for R. Wilkin … 1704.
First edition of this important but little-studied work on free trade for the public good by the physician and political writer Peter Paxton.
£900
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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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[GREAT BRITAIN: PARLIAMENT].
[Drop-head title:] ‘An act for repealing the several duties of customs and excise, and granting...
London, Charles Eyre and Andrew Strahan, 1787.
Rare first edition of the consolidation act that revolutionised British handling of customs and excise and the problem of smuggling, in line with Adam Smith’s 1776 recommendations.
£2750
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HOLLANDER, Jacob Harry.
Economic Liberalism.
New York and Cincinnati, The Abingdon Press, [1925].
First edition, dedicated ‘to the memory of Herbert B. Adams, who first taught me the meaning of liberalism’.
£50
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HADLEY, Arthur Twining.
Economics. An account of the relations between private property and public welfare.
New York and London, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1896.
First edition. ‘In Economics Hadley went further than Marshall by explicitly developing the interrelations between property rights, economic evolution and economic efficiency. Hadley utilized the real world examples of the fisheries and mining to demonstrate the impact of ill-defined property rights...
£175
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WAYLAND, Francis.
The Elements of political Economy.
New York, Leavitt, Lord & Company, 1837.
First edition of an important work long held as the leading principal economics text in American colleges. Wayland (1796–1865) was for twenty-eight years president of Brown University. ‘His notions of political economy and philanthropy dictated that the most important obligations of the state were...
£500
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CARNEGIE, Andrew.
The Empire of Business.
New York, Doubleday, Page & Company, 1902.
First edition (with ‘April, 1902’ statement printed on the copyright page) of this elegantly printed collection of essays by Andrew Carnegie, one of America’s most notable industrialists and philanthropists.
£600
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FERGUSON, Adam.
An Essay on the History of Civil Society.
Edinburgh, A. Millar and T. Cadell, 1768.
Third edition, corrected: the edition owned by Thomas Jefferson.
£700
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MALTHUS, Thomas Robert.
An Essay on the Principle of Population; or, a View of its past and present Effects on human Happiness;...
London, Johnson, 1803.
Second edition, first published 1798. Called the ‘Great Quarto’, it is the first to bear Malthus’s name and is so revised by Malthus as to be ‘regarded by [him] as a substantially new work’ (ODNB).
£5750