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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[WESLEY, John (editor).]
Excerpta ex Ovidio, Virgilio, Horatio, Juvenali, Persio, et Martiali: in Usum Juventutis Christianæ....
Bristoliæ: Typis F. Farley … 1749.
First edition of one of the textbooks that Wesley compiled for the school that he founded at Kingswood, Bristol, in 1748. Finding contemporary textbooks inadequate, he published an astonishing number of works for his pupils – grammars, editions of classics, and other introductions to learning....
£1100
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[WEST INDIES – DENMARK.]
The Danish Laws; or, the Code of Christian the Fifth, Faithfully translated for the use of the English...
London, N. Gibson, 1756.
First English translation of the parts of Christian V’s Danske Lov of 1683 that were relevant to the inhabitants of the Danish West Indies (the present-day U.S. Virgin Islands, plus the islands of St Thomas, St John, and St Croix).
£1000
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WEYLAND, John.
Observations on Mr. Whitbread’s Poor Bill, and on the Population of England: intended as a supplement to A Short...
London, J. Hatchard, 1807.
First edition of each work. The barrister John Weyland (1774–1854) ‘was a well-to-do man whose landed possessions were extensive enough for him to be a magistrate in three counties, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Surrey’ (James, p. 372). In 1807, he wrote two works supporting the poor laws, entitled...
£2800
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WHITEHEAD, Alfred North.
On mathematical concepts of the material world [in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of...
London, Dulau & Co, 1906.
First edition of one of the earliest of Whitehead’s works, the first attempt to tacke the question of the nature of the material world through the symbolism of formal logic.£1750
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WICKSTEED, Charles.
The Land for the people: how to obtain it and how to manage it. Being an attempt to draw out the lines on which...
London, William Reeves, 1885.
First edition. Wicksteed (1810–1885), a Unitarian minister and father of the economist Phillip Wicksteed, was ‘an erudite and thoughtful man and a popular and important preacher’ (Oxford DNB). He is described on the title of the present work as ‘President of Kettering Liberal Association’....
£100
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[WILLIAMS, John.]
The History of the Gunpowder-Treason, collected from approved Authors, as well popish as protestant.
London, Richard Chiswel, 1678.
First edition of an anti-popish history of the Gunpowder Plot. A well informed account drawing on both Anglican and Catholic sources, The History of the Gunpowder-Treason was published anonymously by John Williams (1633/6–1709), later Bishop of Chichester, amid renewed interest in the subject during...
£750
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WILLICH, Anthony Florian Madinger.
Lectures on Diet and Regimen: being a systematic Inquiry into the most rational Means of preserving...
London: Printed for T. N. Longman and O. Rees … 1799.
Second edition, much revised and expanded, printed in the same year as the first: ‘Many important and useful articles have been added, especially in the fifth Chapter, “Of Food and Drink.”’ Willich’s very popular manual was based on a series of lecture given by the eminent physician at Bath...
£375
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[WINE – TRADE CATALOGUE].
Ditta G. Bellavita. Macchinario, attrezzi e prodotti per: produttori e negozianti vini, fabbriche liquori,...
Milano, Arti grafiche Stella, 1926.
A rare survival, especially in such good condition, of a trade catalogue of machinery, chemicals and a wide range of products for wine, spirits and beer makers and merchants, including pubs and wine shops. Each item is illustrated and accompanied by specifics and prices; the newly introduced machinery...
£200
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WITTFOGEL, Karl August.
Die Wissenschaft der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft. Eine marxisatische Untersuchung.
Berlin, Malik, [1922].
First edition of this Marxist analysis of science and education in the bourgeois society, including a prospect of the situation under the dictatorship of the proletariat. This determined radical book was published as volume 8 of the Leine revolutionäre Bibliothek and is based on lectures the 25-year-old...
£180
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[WOMEN-PEARLS].
De Vrouwen-Peirle, ofte dryvoudige historie van Helena de Verduldige, Griseldis de Zagtmoedige, en Florentina de...
Ghent, J. Begyn, [1780-1810].
An attractive copy of the ‘Women-pearls’, a Flemish chapbook portraying three remarkable women and their marvellous stories derived from Medieval romances. It went through numerous and mostly undated editions, alluring readers with the added, winning visual appeal of naïve-style woodcuts and archaic...
£550
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XENOPHON.
De Cyri regis Persarum vita atque disciplina, libri VIII.
Paris, Andreas Wechel, 1572.
First edition of Joachim Camerarius’ Latin translation of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, a partly fictional work on the life and education of Cyrus the Great which served as a model for medieval and renaissance mirrors of princes, including Machiavelli’s Il Principe. A beautiful...
£875
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XENOPHON, and Lodovico DOMENICHI (translator).
L’opere morali di Xenophonte tradotte per M. Lodovico Domenichi.
Venice, Gabriel Giolito de Ferrari, 1547.
First edition of the translation of the moral works of Xenophon by the Italian poet and writer Lodovico Domenichi (1515–1564), containing the first Italian versions of the Spartan Polity and Agesilaus, and of the Socratic dialogues, the Memorabilia, Apologia, Hiero,...
£500
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ZAPPI, Giambattista and Faustina.
Rime di Giambattista Felice Zappi e di Faustina Maratti sua consorte.
Nice, Società Tipog. 1781.
Uncommon Nice printing of the collected poetry of one of the most prominent literary couples of early 18th century Rome, Faustina Maratti (1679–1745) and her husband Giambattista Zappi (1667–1719). First published after Zappi’s death in 1723, the collection consists of 73 poems by Zappi and 38...
£200
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ZECH, Franz Xaver.
Hierarchia ecclesiastica, ad Germaniae Catholicae principia et usum delineata.
Ingolstadt, Schleig, 1750.
First edition of a comprehensive exposition of the prerogatives, duties, jurisdiction, authority and responsibilities of the secular and regular German Catholic clergy. Forty tituli set out the legal profiles and relative hierarchy of pope, patriarchs, cardinals, envoys, bishops, canons, members of religious...
£175
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ZUCKERKANDL, Robert.
Die Währungsänderung in Britisch-Indien.
[Vienna and Prague, F. Tempski, and Leipzig, G, Freytag, c. 1894]
First edition of this rare paper, offprinted from Zeitschrift für Volkswirtschaft, Socialpolitik und Verwaltung, volume III, issue I, on the changes of the Indian currency against the silver and gold prices. From 1873 the value of the Rupee sank considerably, leading to the British government of India’s...
£120