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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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  1. 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

  2. POPE, [Alexander]. 

    Of the Use of Riches, an Epistle to the Right Honorable Allen Lord Bathurst. 

    London, J. Wright for Lawton Gilliver, 1732. 

    First edition, first issue, with p. 13 uncorrected and the erratum on p. 20. 

    £200

  3. [PORTUGAL.]

    Memorias economicas da Academia Real das Sciencias de Lisboa, para o adiantamento da Agricultura, das Artes, e da Industria...

    Lisbon, Officina da Academia Real das Sciencias, 1789 1815.

    First edition. The long period of publication accounts for the rarity of complete sets of this important periodical, containing articles on industry, agriculture, political economy, statistics and general social and geographical matters. They exhibit the continued influence of Physiocratic ideas after...

    £750

  4. [POWNALL, Thomas.] POWNALL, Charles A. W.

    Thomas Pownall M.P., F.R.S., Governor of Massachusetts Bay, Author of The Letters of...

    London, Henry Stevens, Son & Stiles, 1908.

    First edition. Thomas Pownall, English colonial administrator and Governor of Massachusetts, was one of the earliest critics of Adam Smith, publishing a critical Letter (1776) discussing the Wealth of Nations. Although he expressed admiration for Smith’s work in the Letter, he opposed his view of the...

    £100

  5. [PRADT, Dominique Georges Frédéric de Riom de Prolhiac du Four de].

    Antidote au Congrès de Rastadt, ou Plan d’un nouvel équilibre...

    London [i.e. Hamburg], 1798.

    First edition of the Abbé de Pradt’s first and most famous work. The entries for the present work in Barbier, Quérard and NUC (which gives a different pagination) all include ‘par l’auteur des “Considérations sur la France”’ in their transcription of the title-page. Our copy is completely...

    £250

  6. [QUESNAY, François].

    DU PONT DE NEMOURS, Pierre Samuel, editor. Physiocratie, ou constitution naturelle du gouvernement le plus...

    First edition of the ‘Bible’ of the Physiocrats and one of the most important and original works on political economy to be published before the Wealth of Nations. The excessively rare ‘Pékin’ imprint was printed in very small numbers and swiftly withdrawn because of a statement on page 104...

    £37500

  7. [RALPH, James].

    The case of authors by profession or trade, stated: with regard to booksellers, the stage, and the public. No matter...

    London, R. Griffiths, 1758.

    First edition, ‘the first protest raised in the eighteenth century against the treatment of authors and dramatists by booksellers and theatre managers’ (ODNB). From this work Isaac D’Israeli extensively quoted (without acknowledgement) in his Calamities of authors, and it is very likely that Oliver...

    £850

  8. 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

  9. [RICARDO, David.]

    Report from the select committee on the usury laws.

    London, Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 1818.

    First edition of the report from the select committee ‘appointed to consider the effects of the laws which regulate or restrain the interest of money, and to report their opinion thereupon to the House…’ (p. 3). The question of the Usury Laws had first been raised in the house of commons by Brougham...

    £350

  10. RICARDO, David.

    Zasady ekonomji politycznej i podatkowania.

    Warsaw, Jan Cotty, 1919.

    Second and most complete Polish edition of On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (first published in 1817), in a new translation by Dr. M. Bronstein. The 1826 first Polish translation by Stanislaw Kunatt was based on the translation into French by the Portuguese journalist Francisco Solano...

    £150

  11. RICHARDSON, Ralph.

    Coutts & Co. Bankers Edinburgh and London, being the memoirs of a family distinguished for its public services...

    London, Elliott Stock, 1901

    Second edition, revised and enlarged, narrating the instrumental role of the Coutts family in establishing a magnificent system of banking in Scotland.

    £40

  12. ROBERTSON, Dennis Holme.

    Wages. The Stamp Memorial Lecture 1954.

    London, The Athlone Press, 1954.

    First edition, corrected issue.

    £15

  13. ROUQUET, Jean-André. 

    The present State of the Arts in England.  By M. Rouquet, member of the Royal Academy of Painting and...

    London, for J. Nourse, 1755. 

    First edition in English, published in the same year as the French original, from the library of the great Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith (1723–1790). 

    £19500

  14. [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

  15. [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

  16. [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

  17. 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

  18. 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

  19. 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

  20. 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