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. ALBERTI, Leon Battista.

    El Momo. La moral e muy graciosa historia del Momo; compuesta en Latin por el docto varon Leon Bapista...

    Alcalá de Henares, Joan Mey Flandro, 1553.

    First edition in Spanish of Alberti’s Momus [or De principe], translated by Augustín de Almaçan and with an introductory 8-page Exposición by the Toledo ascetic writer and scholar Alejo Venegas (1495?–1554?).

    £3800

  2. ANDREUCCI, Andrea Girolamo.

    De vicariis basilicarum urbis tractatus Canonico-Theologicus.

    Rome, typis Antonii de Rubeis in via Seminarii Romani prope Rotundam, 1744.

    First edition, rare, of Andreucci’s treatise of the juridical and hierarchical prerogatives of the prelates of the basilicae. It was to be reprinted twenty years later as part of the author’s work on ecclesiastical hierarchies.

    £250

  3. [ANGLO-SOVIET DIPLOMACY.] 

    Papers regarding the Anglo-Soviet Negotiations 1939.  Presented by the Secretary of State for Foreign...

    London, His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1939. 

    A proof copy, complete with typed errata attached, of this collection of ninety-five papers relating to the negotiations between the Soviet and British governments between March and December 1939. 

    £750

  4. [ANON.] 

    Le moine galant, ou la vie de Don F… Bernardin, ecrite par lui-même. 

    [S.l., s.n.,] 1756. 

    Scarce first edition of this satirical ‘autobiography’ of a pleasure-driven law student turned monk, replete with amorous adventures. 

    £450

  5. [AUXIRON, Claude-François Joseph d’.]

    Principes de tout gouvernement, ou Examen des causes de la splendeur ou de la foiblesse...

    Paris, J. Th. Hérissant fils, 1766.

    First edition of this influential study of the roots of a thriving state, by the anti-physiocratic economist Claude François Joseph d’Auxiron (1728 – 1778).

    £1500

  6. BACON, Francis.

    Opuscula varia posthuma, philosophica, civilia, et theologica, nunc primum edita. Cura & fide Guilielmi Rawley…...

    London, R. Daniel, impensis Octaviani Pulleyn, 1658.

    First edition, second issue (with the imprint R. Daniel, rather than R. Danielis) of this collection of the philosophical, political, and theological writings of Bacon, including numerous essays previously unpublished, and the first appearance of William Rawley’s biographical sketch of the philosopher....

    £1250

  7. BACON, Francis. 

    Francisci Baconi, Baronis de Verulamio, Vice-Comitis Sancti Albani, operum moralium et civilium tomus … cura...

    London, Edward Griffin [and John Haviland] for Richard Whitaker [and John Norton], 1638. 

    First edition, first issue, a copy from the celebrated Albani library: tangible witness to the early and fecund reception of Bacon’s thought in the circles of Galilean science in Italy. 

    £3500

  8. [BAILEY, Samuel]

    The Rationale of Political Representation. By the author of essays on the formation of opinions, &c., &c.

    London: R. Hunter. 1835.

    First edition. The Rationale… examines many aspects of political representation, from chapters on the ‘Grounds of Preference for a Representative Government’ to a ‘Discussion of Changes in Political Institutions’. Alongside this extended treatise there are two further supplementary essays:...

    £250

  9. [BALDELLI, Giovanni Battista].

    Elogio di Niccolò Machiavelli.

    Londra, 1794. 

    Uncommon first edition of this speech in praise of Machiavelli, given to the Reale Accademia Fiorentina on 7 August 1794 by the Florentine soldier, politician, and historian Giovanni Battista Baldelli Boni (1766–1831).

    £325

  10. BALFOUR, Arthur James, first Earl of Balfour.

    Letter, signed, to ‘Sir John’.

    London, 10 Downing Street, 28 June 1901.

    A letter from Arthur Balfour, as first lord of the Treasury, concerning what would become perhaps his greatest achievement, the Education Act of 1902.

    £300

  11. BALLOU, Adin.

    Practical Christian socialism: a conversational exposition of the true system of human society; in three parts, viz:...

    Hopedale and New York, by the author and Fowlers and Wells, 1854.

    First edition. Adin Ballou (1803-90), Universalist clergyman and leading American Christian social reformer, founded the utopian Hopedale Community in 1841, during the heyday of such communal experiments. He surrendered his presidency of Hopedale in 1852 in order to devote himself to expanding his movement...

    £450

  12. BALZAC, Jean-Louis Guez de.

    Aristippus, or, Monsieur de Balsac’s Masterpiece, being a Discourse concerning the Court … Englished...

    London: Printed by Tho. Newcomb for Nat. Eakins … and Tho. Johnson … 1659.

    First edition in English of Aristippe (1657), a treatise on wisdom in political administration dedicated to Queen Christina of Sweden, who was an admirer. Balzac was particularly reputed for the quality of his prose, seen as raising it to the same perfection as Malherbe did for French verse. ...

    £750

  13. BARGINET, Alexandre-Pierre.

    De l’amnistie et du mariage de S. A. R. le duc d’Orléans.

    Paris, Laisné, [1837].

    First edition, rare. A work commending the Prince Royal, Ferdinand Philippe of Orléans, whose talent at exercising influence and popular support gave a hopeful outlook for the constitutional monarchy in France – a position strengthened by his marriage to Hélène of Mecklenburg-Schwerin in May 1837....

    £75

  14. BEAUMONT, Gustave-Auguste de la Bonninière de.

    Autograph letter signed (‘Gustave de Beaumont’) to Sarah Austin.

    Birmingham, 27 June [1835].

    A warm and personal autograph documenting the relationship between Beaumont (1802–1866), prison reformer and travel companion to Alexis de Tocqueville, and one of the most accomplished contemporary catalysts of philosophical exchange, the translator Sarah Austin.

    £350

  15. [BECCARIA, Cesare.]

    Dei Delitti e delle pene. Edizione sesta di nuovo corretta ed accresciuta.

    Harlem, et se vend a Paris, chez Molini, 1766.

    Sixth edition, expanded to forty-seven paragraphs, of Beccaria’s principal work, one of the founding texts of penology and an important statement of criminal law reform, here with the additions of the ‘Giudizio di celebre professore sopra il livro dei delitti e delle pene’ and ‘Risposta...

    £750

  16. [BENDISCIOLI, Faustino.]

    Quadro ossia saggio epilogato del Sistema di liberta’ proclamato dai Francesi.

    Milan, Stamperia [dei Patrioti d’Italia] di Strada Nuova, [1799].

    An impassioned tract attacking the claims of a new life of liberty promoted in Europe after the French Revolution, very rarely to be found in any of the three editions published in the same year.

    £200

  17. BENTHAM, Jeremy.

    Plan of Parliamentary Reform, in the Form of a Catechism, with Reasons for each Article. With an Introduction,...

    London: Printed in the Year 1817. Re-printed and Re-published, with Notes and Alterations, by Permission of the Author, by T. J. Wooler … 1818.

    First edition thus of an inexpensive reprint of Bentham’s Plan of Parliamentary Reform (1817), the style adapted by Thomas Wooler, with Bentham’s permission, to ‘render it more easy of comprehension to the popular reader’. In this form it first appeared in instalments in Wooler’s radical...

    £225

  18. BENTHAM, Jeremy.

    The Elements of the Art of Packing, as applied to Special Juries, particularly in cases of libel law.

    London, Effingham Wilson, 1821.

    First published edition, originally printed in 1810, of Bentham’s criticism of English libel law, which he had always detested and which more than once stood in the way of the free publication of his opinions. When the work was written, the law’s injustice had recently been made obvious in a series...

    £250

  19. BENTHAM, Jeremy. SALAS Y CORTES, Ramón (translator).

    Tratados de legislación civil y penal, obra extractada de los manuscritos...

    Madrid, Fermín Villalpando, 1821-1822.

    A very good copy of this Spanish translation of Bentham’s penal writings, translated from the second French edition of 1820, with an additional commentary, by the Spanish jurist and rector of Salamanca University, Salas y Cortés (1753–1837). This collection was first prepared and published...

    £1100

  20. [BERINGTON, Simon, adapted by Jean-Baptiste DUPUY-DEMPORTES.] 

    Memoires de Gaudence de Luques, prisonnier de l’Inquisition...

    Amsterdam and Leipzig, Arkstée & Merkus, 1754. 

    Second edition of this much expanded and altered translation of Berington’s celebrated utopian novel, Memoirs of Sigr Gaudentio di Lucca (1737). 

    £500