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. ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques.

    Du contract social, ou, Principes du droit politique.

    Milan, Pogliani, 1796.

    First edition printed in Italy, very rare, of Rousseau’s Contrat social.

    £3500

  2. [ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques.] 

    Le Devin du village, intermede, représenté devant Sa Majesté a Fontainebleau, le Mecredi 14 Novembre...

    [Paris,] Pierre-Robert-Christophe Ballard, 1770. 

    Rare edition of a later lifetime performance of Rousseau’s influential opera, The Village Soothsayer, in an attractively unsophisticated sammelband of court operas. 

    £375

  3. [ROYAL FISHERY COMPANY.]

    A Collection of Advertisements, Advices, and Directions, relating to the Royal Fishery within the British...

    London, printed for H.M. and sold by J. Whitlock, 1695.

    First edition. The Royal Fishery Company, incorporated in 1662, had great trouble finding subscribers. Initially, Charles II offered £9000 as an incentive to investors but on these only raising £3680 he withdrew his undertaking, instead allowing a lottery to aid the Company’s fortunes. After attempts...

    £200

  4. [ROYAL LUSTRING COMPANY.]

    The Report of the Committee of the House of Commons, to whom the Petition of the Royal Lustring-Company...

    London, E. Whitlock, 1698.

    First edition; a French version appeared the same year. Since its foundation in 1688, the Royal Lustring Company (importers of ‘lustrings’ or ‘alamodes’ – a fine, light, glossy, black silk) had enjoyed special monopolistic privileges which it had exploited to the full. However, by the end...

    £275

  5. [ROZIER.] 

    Le rozier historial de France contenant deux roziers.  Le p[re]mier rozier contient plusieurs belles rozes et boutons...

    Paris, [Gilles Couteau for François Regnault], 26 February 1522 [i.e. 1523]. 


    First edition, the very handsome Fairfax-Murray copy, of the Rozier historial de France

    £25000

  6. ‘RUFIANDER, Fabius Jocosus’ [pseud. Friedrich Julius ROTTMANN]. 

    Curiöse Inaugural Disputation von dem Recht / Natur...

    ‘Teutschland, Gedruckt in denen Hundes-Tagen, 1716.’ 

    First edition, very rare, of this satirical academic disputation on melancholy, dedicated to the author’s ‘unpleasant and universally despised’ peers in the hope of cheering them up (p. [4] trans.). 

    £675

  7. RUGE, Arnold, and Clair James GRECE, Paul NERRLICH (ed.).

    Unser System ... Herausgegeben von C. J. Grece, LL.D. Zum 100. Geburtstage...

    Frankfurt, Neuer Frankfurter Verlag, 1903.

    A rare celebrative reprint of the most detailed exposition of Arnold Ruge’s philosophy (originally published in 1850).

    £100

  8. [SAINTE-HILAIRE, Émile Marco de.]

    Réclamation addressée à S. Ece. Mgr. Delavau, préfet de police, par Modeste Agnès, patentée...

    Paris, chez les marchands de nouveautés, 1821.

    Rare first edition of this work on Parisian prostitution, attributed to the writer and journalist Émile Marco de Sainte-Hilaire (1796–1887). The Réclamation is presented as a letter from the prostitute Modeste Agnès to the newly-appointed Paris chief of police, Guy Delavau (1787–1874),...

    £850

  9. [SARPI, Paolo (pseud.).] ‘Pietro Soave POLANO’. 

    Historia del Concilio Tridentino di Pietro Soave Polano.  Seconda...

    Geneva, Pierre Aubert, 1629. 

    Second edition, the first to omit the extraneous additions of the 1619 edition introduced by Marco Antonio de Dominis, of the influential and groundbreaking history of the Council of Trent by Paolo Sarpi (1552–1623), described by Milton as ‘the great unmasker’. 

    £450

  10. SARRATT, Jacob Henry. 

    The works of Damiano, Ruy-Lopez and Salvio, on the game of chess; translated and arranged: with remarks,...

    London, T. Boosey, 1813. 

    First edition.  ‘It was not the least of [Sarratt’s] services to English chess that he introduced his generation to the work of the older masters, Damiano, Lopez, and Salvio, in a series of translations.  That, as we now know to be the case, these translations were careless, inaccurate,...

    £300

  11. SAY, Jean-Baptiste.

    Olbie, ou Essai sur les moyens de réformer les moeurs d’une nation.

    Paris, Deterville and Treuttel & Wurtz, ‘an VIII de la République’ [1799–1800].[bound with:][ANON]. Principes politiques, par F. M....

    Presentation copy with the author’s inscription of the rare first edition of Say’s utopia, written in response to a competition organised by the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques on the question: ‘Quelles sont les institutions capables de fonder la morale chez un peuple?’. Say...

    £5000

  12. SAY, Léon.

    [cover title: ] La Société coopérative est la meilleure des caisses d’épargne.

    Lille, L. Danel, [1866?].

    First edition. Léon Say (1826–1896), grandson of Jean-Baptiste Say, ‘became one of the most prominent statesmen of the French Third Republic. He served as Finance Minister from 1872 to 1879, and again in 1882, overseeing the largest financial operation of the century – payment of war reparations...

    £75

  13. SAY, Léon.

    Les solutions démocratiques de la question des impots. Conférences faites à l’École des science politiques …...

    Paris, Guillaumin et Cie, 1886.

    First edition. Léon Say (1826–1896), grandson of Jean-Baptiste Say, ‘became one of the most prominent statesmen of the French Third Republic. He served as Finance Minister from 1872 to 1879, and again in 1882, overseeing the largest financial operation of the century – payment of war reparations...

    £125

  14. SCHREBER, Daniel Gottfried.

    Sammlung verschiedener Schriften, welche in die öconomischen, Policey- und cameral- auch andere Wissenschaften...

    Halle, im Verlag Johann Jacob Curts, 1755-65.

    First edition, a complete set of this collection of agro-economical articles and essays. Schreber was the first professor of economics at Leipzig. His Abhandlung von Kammergütern appeared in 1743. In these collected essays he assembled his own treatises and those of other authors to provide a systematic...

    £1250

  15. SCHREBER, Johann Christian.

    Botanisch-Oeconomische Abhandlung vom Grasbaue. Preisschrift, welche die, in den öconomischen Nachrichten,...

    Leipzig, Johann Wendler, 1763.

    First separate edition of this prize-winning treatise on grass and hay, first published in the Ökonomische Nachrichten.

    £75

  16. SCHUMACHER, H., Professor.

    Autograph letter signed (‘H. Schumacher’) to a colleague.

    Bonn, den Coblenzerstrasse 83, 10 February 1915.

    Schumacher’s spirited response to a colleague who had asked for Schumacher’s opinion on a letter he intended to publish in an American newspaper. Schumacher charges him with completely misunderstanding both the political situation and public opinion in the USA. He criticises the German attitude towards...

    £150

  17. SCIALOJA, Antonio.

    I Principî della economia sociale esposti in ordine ideologico … II. edizione riveduta, corretta ed aumentata.

    Turin, Giuseppe Pomba, 1846.

    Second edition, enlarged. Antonio Scialoja (1817–1877) studied at Naples, publishing the Principi della economia sociale (1840) there when he was only 22. It proved a great success in Italy and elsewhere, receiving many editions in Italian and a translation into French in 1843. In 1846, the year of...

    £75

  18. [SCOTLAND.]

    Seventeen pamphlets relating mostly to legal cases in Scotland.

    Aberdeen and Edinburgh, 1772-1788.

    An interesting sammelband relating largely to Scottish legal cases, containing 12 items unrecorded on ESTC, COPAC and OCLC. The cases include those of a Kilbagie distiller convicted of bribery; of Sir William Erskine of Torrie against a London banking house; of a St Andrews minister convicted of perjury;...

    £750

  19. SCOTT, Sir Walter.

    Copy of a letter to Colin Mackenzie.

    Abbotsford, 26 July [1827].

    Scott here discusses Scottishness with his long-term correspondent Colin Mackenzie. He discusses the gradual loss of the Scottish accent amongst the educated classes of Scotland, who are sent to England for their education, remarking, ‘It is repugnant to my feelings to destroy what seems one of [the]...

    £100

  20. SELKIRK, Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of.

    Observations on the present state of the Highlands of Scotland, with a view of the causes...

    London, Longman et al., 1805.

    First edition. ‘In 1792 … Selkirk [1771–1820] undertook an extensive tour through the Scottish Highlands and became convinced that emigration thence was unavoidable. He also recognised the need of some controlling hand to direct it. He first conceived the idea of a settlement at the Red River (what...

    £425