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. ALLAIS, Maurice Félix Charles.

    The hereditary and relativistic formulation...

    June 1975.

    The Nobel Prize economist Allais obtained...

    £100

  2. ALVAREZ DE ARENALES, Jose.

    Noticias historicas y descriptivas sobre...

    Montevideo, [Imprenta del Comercio del...

    Rare second edition, after the first of...

    £100

  3. ANSWER OF THE MERCHANTS-PETITIONERS,

    and Trustees for the Factory at Legorn,...

    London: Printed in the Year 1704.

    First and only edition, scarce, part...

    £1350

  4. ANTWERP, William C. van.

    The Stock Exchange from Within. Illustrated...

    New York, Doubleday, Page & Company, 1913.

    First edition of this historical account...

    £50

  5. ATLANTICUS, pseud.

    Ein Blick in den Zukunftsstaat. Produktion...

    Stuttgart, J. H. W. Dietz, 1898.

    First edition of this utopian discourse...

    £100

  6. BALLOU, Adin.

    Practical Christian socialism: a conversational...

    Hopedale and New York, by the author and...

    First edition. Adin Ballou (1803-90), Universalist...

    £450

  7. [BANK OF SCOTLAND.]

    Act of Parliament for erecting a bank in...

    Edinburgh, printed by the heirs and successors...

    Very rare edition of the Act of Parliament...

    £650

  8. BEARDÉ DE L’ABBAYE.

    Essays in agriculture: or, a variety of...

    London, T. Carnan, 1776.

    First and only edition in English. Little...

    £200

  9. BELLONI, Girolami, Marchese.

    Del Commercio dissertazione.

    Rome, Niccolo and Marco Pagliarini, 1757.

    Second edition to be authorized by Belloni,...

    £300

  10. BENTHAM, William, barrister and numismatist.

    Autograph letter to the bookseller Lackington.

    Upper Gower Street [London], 25 August 1819.

    Writing in the third person, Bentham requests...

    £100

  11. BEVERIDGE, William Henry.

    Full employment in a free society: a report ...

    London, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, [1944].

    First edition of the second report by the...

    £50

  12. BLANQUI, Jérôme Adolphe, l’Ainé.

    Histoire de l’économie politique en...

    Paris, Guillaumin, 1837.

    First edition of ‘the first major history...

    £125

  13. BODEMER, Heinrich.

    Die Wirkungen der Creditpapiere in Bezug...

    Leipzig, Heinrich Hubner, 1853.

    First edition of a rare German treatise...

    £125

  14. BROUGHAM, Lord Henry.

    Lives of men of letters and science who...

    London, Charles Knight and Co., 1845-47.

    First edition of the first volume (1845),...

    £125

  15. CAGNAZZI, Luca de Samuele.

    Analisi dell’ economia privata e pubblica...

    Naples, Società filomatica, 1830.

    First edition. Cagnazzi (1764–1852) was...

    £125

  16. CAIROL, M. de.

    Réflexions historiques et politiques,...

    Amsterdam and Toulouse, Joseph Robert, 1786.

    Very rare essay on the state of agriculture...

    £450

  17. CALVERT, William John.

    The demand for labour is wealth … Supplement...

    Newark, M. Hage and London, Longman … 1822.

    Very rare first edition of Calvert’s...

    £250

  18. [CAMPOMANES, Pedro Rodriguez, Conde de].

    Discurso sobre el Fomento de la Industria...

    Madrid, D. Antonio de Sancha, 1774.

    First edition; preceding the complementary...

    £400

  19. CAMPOMANES, Pedro Rodriguez (Antonio Conca y Alcaraz, translator).

    Trattato della regalia d’ammortizzazione,...

    Parma, Filippo Carmignani, 1767.

    First Italian translation of this influential...

    £350

  20. CAREY, Henry Charles.

    Principles of social science … In three...

    Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott, 1858-1859.

    First edition, a very attractive copy,...

    £500