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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. TUGAN-BARANOVSKI, Mikhail Ivanovich.

    Obshchestvennoe ekonomicheskie idealyi nashego vremeni

    Saint Petersburg, Izdatelstvo ‘Vestniks Znaniya’ V.V. Bitner, 1913 .

    First and only edition of Socio-Economic Ideals in Our Time, seemingly never translated into English.

    £850

  2. TURNER, Sharon.

    The sacred history of the world, as displayed in the creation and subsequent events to the deluge. Attempted to...

    London, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green and Longman, 1832 [– 1834; – 1837].

    First edition, each volume with a presentation letter from the author (dated 1 March 1832, 12 December 1834, and 27 March 1837 respectively) to the classical scholar Thomas Gaisford.

    £500

  3. TYRE, William, Archbishop of, and Giuseppe OROLOGGI (translator).

    Historia della guerra sacra di Gierusalemme,...

    Venice, Vincenzo Valgrisi, 1562.

    First Italian edition of William of Tyre’s (1130–1186) important account of the first two crusades and of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, with the addition of a seventeenth-century manuscript detailing a uniquely Italian rendition of the tale of the Wandering Jew.

    £2800

  4. [UNGER, Salomo Gottlob.]

    Geschichte des Oesterreich-Russischen und Türkischen Krieges, in den Jahren von 1787. bis 1792. Nebst...

    Leipzig, Wilhelm Gottlob Sommer, 1792.

    First and only edition, extremely rare, of this account of the Austro-Turkish War of 1788-1791, and of the concurrent Russo-Turkish war of 1787-92. It includes the full texts of the Treaty of Sistova of 4 August 1791 and of a separate convention attached to it, in both French and German. While...

    £1250

  5. VALERIANI MOLINARI, Luigi.

    Discorsi concernenti la pubblica economia il gius pubblico e l’antico gius romano.

    Bologna, Masi, 1809.

    First edition of Valeriani’s (1758–1828) rare work of political economy presented as a science which stands as an organic complement to a nation’s set of legislation.

    £750

  6. VALERIUS MAXIMUS.

    Dictorum et factorum memorabilium libri novem.

    [(Colophon:) Venice, Aldus Manutius, October 1502] [April 1503].

    First Aldine edition, variant ‘B’ with four additional leaves in quire A, with numerous early annotations.

    £2750

  7. [VALLI, Francesco di Andrea.] 

    Manuscript receipt book. 

    Villa di Vaglie, Cortona, 1735-1767. 

    An interesting manuscript receipt book recording the affairs and transactions of Francesco di Andrea Valli (or Vagli) and his sons Pietro and Egidio, landowners and farmers from Villa di Vaglie near Cortona, over the course of four decades. 

    £375

  8. VANSITTART, Nicholas.

    Substance of two speeches [on the bullion question], made by the Right Hon. N. Vansittart, on the 7th and...

    London, J. Hatchard, 1811.

    First edition of this important contribution by Vansittart (1766-1851) to the so-called Bullionist Controversy, ‘the series of debates about monetary theory and policy which took place in Britain over the years 1797-1821, when the specie convertibility of Bank of England notes was suspended’, the...

    £500

  9. VELLEIUS PATERCULUS.

    Historiae Romanae duo volumina, ad M. Vinicium Cos. progenerum Tiberii Caesaris, per Beatum Rhenanum Selestadiensem...

    [(Colophon:) Basel, Johann Froben, November 1520.]

    Editio princeps of a summary history of Rome to AD 29 by the soldier-turned-historian Velleius Paterculus, edited from a now lost manuscript by the German humanist Beatus Rhenanus (1485–1547), with tipped-in notes by a contemporary student of Roman history displaying a remarkable concern...

    £2750

  10. VENERONI, Giovanni. 

    The Complete Italian Master; containing the best and easiest Rules for attaining that Language … Newly...

    London, J. Nourse, 1763. 

    First edition thus, revising an earlier translation of Le maitre italien of 1711, which was not only ‘out of print’ but ‘in many respects inaccurate’ (Preface).  The translator’s preface acknowledges the work of foreign editors since the second edition of 1729 and describes some...

    £750

  11. VERTAMONT, Abbé de, attributed.

    L’Ombre du feu Cardinal: or, Cardinal Fleury’s Ghost. Translated from the original...

    Milles … and the Booksellers of London and Westminster. 1743.

    First edition, ostensibly translated from a manuscript rescued by an Officer of the Guards at the Bastille, but in fact an original English thrust at French foreign policy following the death of Cardinal André-Hercule de Fleury, the able chief minister of Louis XV and political ally of Sir Robert...

    £350

  12. VERTOGRADOV.

    За антиимпериалистическую солидарность, мир и прогресс! [For...

    Moscow, Izdatelstvo Plakat, 1975.

    A dramatic manifestation of the Soviet Union’s claim to be the foremost enemy of imperialism, and a vehement supporter of independence movements throughout the third world, as demonstrated here by the traditional dress of some of the figures in the background.

    £250

  13. VERTOT, Abbé de.

    The History of the Revolutions of Portugal. By M. l’Abbe de Vertot, member of the Royal Academy of Inscriptions...

    Glasgow, printed by R. Urie for D. Baxter, 1750.

    Uncommon first Glasgow edition of this English translation of the Histoire des révolutions de Portugal, a classic account of the Portuguese Restoration War against Spain (1640-1668) by the French historian René-Aubert Vertot (1655–1735).

    £150

  14. VINCENS, Jean Alexandre.

    Account book.

    Nimes, France, 1783-1800.

    A unique record of the financial transactions and business dealings of a leading Protestant family of bankers and merchants in Nîmes, in the south of France, prior to and during the French Revolution, covering the period between May 1783 and Fructidor year VIII i.e. 1800.

    £4250

  15. [VIRGIL.]  RAMUS, Petrus (Pierre de la RAMÉE). 

    ...

    Paris, André Wechel, 1564. 

    Second editions of Ramus’s extensive commentaries on Virgil’s two poems on country life, written in reaction to the dry doctrines of several French schools who based their teaching of nature on Aristotle’s Physics.  Ramus wanted to keep in contact with the concrete realities of nature...

    £950

  16. [VOLTAIRE.]

    Das Mädchen von Orleans. Ein komisches Heldengedicht in zwölf Gesängen nach Voltaire frei bearbeitet.

    Neustadt, ‘im Verlags-Comptoir’, n. d. [mid nineteenth century].

    A good copy of this very rare German rendition of Voltaire’s La Pucelle d’Orleans. Fromm gives the date as around 1865 (and the place of publication as Hamburg), the online Staatsbibliothek catalogue (the only copy listed by KVK) as c.1830. The translator remains anonymous.

    £100

  17. WALFORD, L[ucy] B[ethia].

    The Mischief of Monica … in three Volumes …

    London, Longmans, Green, & Co. … 1891.

    First edition. Born in Edinburgh in 1845, Walford began writing secretly soon after her marriage, contributing stories to Blackwood’s and other periodicals. Her family voiced serious disapproval upon the publication of her first novel, Mr Smith: A Part of his Life, in 1874; it was, however,...

    £425

  18. WALKER, Francis Amasa.

    Discussions in Economics and Statistics.

    New York, Henry Holt and Company, 1899.

    First edition of this collection edited by Professor Dewey of more than fifty articles by Francis Amasa Walker, some published here for the first time, classified under the heads of Statistics, National Growth, Social Economics, Finance and Taxation, Money and Bimetallism, and Economy Theory.

    £350

  19. WALKER, George.

    Don Raphael, a Romance …

    London, Printed for G. Walker; and T. Hurst; by Exton … 1803.

    First edition. ‘In order to satisfy the omnipresent needs of the Gothic industry, Walker apparently felt obliged to turn out a Gothic’s Gothic made up of fragments of Walpole, Beckford, Lewis, Radcliffe, and the cheap and tawdry Gothic chapbooks flooding the bookstalls. The dubious product...

    £3250

  20. WALKER, John.

    An economical History of the Hebrides and Highlands of Scotland ... in two Volumes ... Edinburgh: Printed at the...

    Edinburgh: Printed at the University Press; 1808

    First edition. The eminent naturalist John Walker (1731-1803), professor of natural history in the University of Edinburgh (Smollett was one of his students) and keeper of the university museum, made six long journeys into the Highlands and Islands from 1760 to 1786. He was commissioned by the General...

    £450