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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[AGRIPPA, Heinrich Cornelius.]
De la grandeur et de l’excellence des femmes, au dessus des hommes. Ouvrage composé en Latin,...
Paris, François Baruty, 1713.
The third translation into French, but the first in the eighteenth century, of this work in praise of the female sex by the German occultist, lawyer, and soldier Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486–1535).
£1450
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AINSWORTH, William Harrison.
The Combat of the Thirty. From a Breton Lay of the fourteenth Century. With an Introduction, comprising...
London: Chapman and Hall … 1859
First edition of the first English translations of these two texts, inscribed to ‘James Crossley from his old friend William Harrison Ainsworth’. The two men had been friends since 1817 when Crossley, a solicitor, was articled to Ainsworth’s father and later became a partner in the firm. He was...
£550
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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
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[ALMANAC.]
Le Parnasse des dames.
Paris, Janet, [1814].
An attractive copy of Janet’s Parnasse des dames, a pocket-book alamanac on art and literature aimed at a female readership. The little volume contains a broad miscellany of verse, some by female authors, prefaced by engraved copies of works by seventeenth-century French and Dutch painters...
£325
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[ALMANAC.]
Almanacco delle Dame.
Florence, F. Canale, [1883].
A lavishly decorated – and seemingly unrecorded – Florentine almanac for ladies, containing love poetry, notable dates, and illustrating the latest fashions of 1883.
£275
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[ALMANAC.]
CRUIKSHANK, Percy. P. Cruikshank’s Comic Almanack for 1864, containing numerous Illustrations in Oil Colour Printing,...
London: Read & Co, … [1863].
A very rare colour-printed almanac by the nephew of George Cruikshank, apparently the first of a short series. The calendar pages are each accompanied by some ‘Notes of the Month’, and a jest at the foot, and commemorate recent events such as the burning of the Titian gallery at Blenheim,...
£350
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ALMEIDA, Theodoro de.
Lisboa destruida poema, author o P. Theodoro de Almeida, da Congregaçaõ do Oratorio de Lisboa.
Lisbon, Antonio Rodrigues Galhardo, 1803.
First edition of this poem in six cantos, with extensive notes, on the disastrous 1755 Lisbon earthquake, by the Oratorian priest and philosopher Almeida (1722-1804). One of the deadliest in history, the earthquake almost totally destroyed the Portuguese capital and accentuated political tensions within...
£300
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ALVAREZ DE ARENALES, Jose.
Noticias historicas y descriptivas sobre el gran pais del Chaco y Rio Bermejo; con observaciones relativas...
Montevideo, [Imprenta del Comercio del Plata], 1850.
Rare second edition, after the first of 1833, of this analysis of the Chaco and Rio Bermejo regions of Paraguay, divided into three sections. The first covers the geography, population and natural history of the area, the second relates the conquest of Paraguay and Peru, containing extracts from various...
£200
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ANDREADES, Andreas Michael.
De la monnaie et de la puissance d’achat des métaux précieux dans l’Empire Byzantin . . . Extrait...
Liège, Imprimerie H. Vaillant-Carmanne, 1924.
An offprint, with its own title-page and pagination, of this important study. This is a presentation copy, inscribed in ink ‘To Robert Byron. A. A.’ at the head of the front wrapper. Andreades was the first professor of public finance at the University of Athens and the author of a monumental work...
£45
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[ANDREAE, Johann Valentin.]
Reipublicae Christianopolitanae descriptio ...
Strasburg, heirs of Lazarus Zetzner, 1619.
A rare and influential Renaissance political utopia, in a fine sammelband of four first editions by the Lutheran humanist Johann Valentin Andreae (1586–1654).
£12500
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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
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[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
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ANTONIUS de Vercellis.
Sermones quadragesimales de XII mirabilibus Christianae fidei excellentiis [with additions by Ludovicus...
Venice, Johannes and Gregorius de Gregoriis, de Forlivio, [for Alexander Calcedonius], 16 February 1492/93.
A remarkable copy of the first edition of Antonius de Vercellis’ sermons, owned and annotated by three contemporary Franciscans, one of whom, Andrea Alamanni, may be the confessor who administered Machiavelli’s last rites.
£8500
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ANTWERP, William C. van.
The Stock Exchange from Within. Illustrated from photographs.
New York, Doubleday, Page & Company, 1913.
First edition of this historical account of the New York Stock Exchange.
£50
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[AQUHORTIES College.]
Abstract of the Rules and Regulations for the Students in the College of Aquhorties …
[At foot:] Edinburgh: Printed by J. Moir, Paterson’s Court. [1799?].
Broadside rules for the newly established Aquhorties College, the only Roman Catholic college in Scotland, presumably designed to be posted up around the school.
£850
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[ARISTOTLE – ELIAS.]
Biblioteca Armeno-Georgica. I. Commentarii in Aristotelis Categorias Eliae commentatori adscripti versio...
St Petersburg, Academiae Imperialis Scientarum, 1911.
Uncommon edition, published by the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg, of the Armenian translation of the commentaries on Aristotle’s Categories by the sixth-century Christian philosopher and commentator Elias.
£250
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Aristotle: From Antiquity to the Modern Era.
Preface by Martin J. Gross. Essays by Benjamin Morison and Barbara Scalvini.
Lewes, D. Giles Ltd for the Martin J. Gross Family Foundation, 2021.
Aristotle’s influence towers over western philosophy and science. His astonishing range and depth – philosophy and logic, the physical and natural sciences, ethics and politics – make him indisputably the most important intellectual figure in the western tradition before the modern age.
£30
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[ARISTOTLE’S MASTERPIECE.]
Aristotle’s Compleat and experience’d Midwife: in two Parts. I. A Guide for Child-bearing...
London: Printed, and sold by the Booksellers. 1711.
Second edition, very rare, apparently ‘translated’ (i.e. edited) by the self-trained popular empiric William Salmon, a prolific author of domestic medical treatises; some of the text is drawn from Nicholas Culpeper.
£950
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ATLANTICUS, pseud.
Ein Blick in den Zukunftsstaat. Produktion und Konsum im Sozialstaat. Mit einer Vorrede von Karl Kautsky.
Stuttgart, J. H. W. Dietz, 1898.
First edition of this utopian discourse on the industrial and commercial composition of the ideal socialised state. The most common attribution is to the Latvian-born economist Carl Ballod, though some, including the British Library, suggest the author Gustav Jaeckh. There is a significant foreword (pp....
£100
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AUGIER DU FOT, Anne Amable.
Catechismo d’ostetricia per istruzione delle mammane di campagna composto per odine e a spese del...
Venice, Stamperia Graziosi, 1787.
Uncommon first Italian edition of this handbook of obstetrics, initially published in France at the behest of Turgot in 1775 and distributed gratis to French midwives.
£550