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Human Sciences

Contact Jonathan Harrison or Alexander Laar

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. CAMPBELL, George.

    A dissertation on miracles: containing an examination of the principles advanced by David Hume Esq; in an essay...

    Edinburgh, for A. Kincaid & J. Bell, 1762.

    First edition. This dissertation, expanded from a sermon preached before the provincial synod in 1760 is called by Mossner ‘the most elaborate of the eighteenth century and is further remarkable in that it drew comment from Hume himself’ (p. 292). Through an intermediary, the Reverend Hugh Blair,...

    £850

  2. [CAMPOMANES, Pedro Rodriguez, Conde de].

    Discurso sobre el Fomento de la Industria popular. De orden de S. M. [Carlos III] y del...

    Madrid, D. Antonio de Sancha, 1774.

    First edition; preceding the complementary Discurso sobre la educación popular de los artesanos y su fomenta (1775); Dutch and Italian editions appeared in 1780 and 1787. Campomanes (1723–1802) was, according to McCulloch, ‘one of the most intelligent and distinguished Spanish statesmen of [the...

    £400

  3. CAPPELLO, Pier Andrea (also CAPELLO).

    Nuovo trattato del modo di regolare la moneta.

    Venice, Lorenzo Baseggio, 1752.

    Very scarce first edition. Cappello’s work seeks to deduce the general principles regulating supply and demand by studying the relative circulation of gold and silver across twelve international markets. He offers the empirical basis of his study in fourteen tables which provide exhaustive details...

    £5000

  4. CARBONARO, J.

    A. Nouveau traité d’arithmètique.

    Tournay, Blanquart, 1800.

    First edition, very rare, of a book on arithmetic which concentrates on its applications to trade and accountancy. The book deals with tariffs, tables of exchange, measures, calculation of interest, rent, and chapters on the nature of companies and of bankruptcy.

    £1200

  5. CAREY, Henry Charles.

    Principles of social science.

    Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott, 1858-1860.

    First edition, a very attractive copy, of Carey’s principal work. ‘His treatment of social science was original, and led him to a series of supposed discoveries, the order of which he has stated in the introduction of his most important work The Principles of Social Science. His point of departure...

    £1500

  6. CARNAP, Rudolf.

    Introduction to semantics.

    Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1942.

    First edition. The letter inserted in this copy, dated February 26th 1947, is one leaf, penned and signed by Carnap, and addressed to R.P. Brady, a graduate student whose idea of a new introduction to Principia Mathematica Carnap finds ‘very interesting’. In response to Brady’s request, Carnap...

    £1250

  7. CARNAP, Rudolf.

    1959 & 1962.

    The first photograph shows Carnap and his wife outside their house and is signed and, in another hand, dated 1959 as having been taken in Santa Monica. The second photograph is of Carnap and is dated 1960, signed and inscribed “Der lieben Erna, in alter Freundschaft”. This refers to Erna Lowenberg...

    £1500

  8. [CATHERINE II, Empress of Russia].

    Le Czarewitz Chlore. Conte Moral. De main impériale & de maitresse.

    Berlin, Fréderic Nicolaï, Lausanne, François Grasset, 1782.

    First edition, very rare, of a speculum principis of the Enlightenment, by one of the time’s most enlightened monarchs. Le Czarewitz Chlore is a moral tale written by Catherine II of Russia for her two grandsons, the future Alexander I and his younger brother Constantine, while their father and mother,...

    £3000

  9. [CITY OF LONDON.]

    An Act for the better regulating the Nightly-Watch, and Beadles within the City of London, and Liberties thereof;...

    [London, 1737].

    Rare first edition of an act providing for the ‘raising and levying of Monies’ for the employment of night-watchmen in the City of London. ‘The said Constables, shall … use their best Endeavours, to prevent Fires, Murders, Burglaries, Robberies, and other Outrages, and Disorders …’. The act...

    £850

  10. [CIVIL LAW.]

    COMMENTARY, in Latin; a complete paper leaf, double columns of 61 lines, the words commented on written in a large...

    Much of the commentary is concerned with legal transactions and gives instructions about how to produce a valid legal document, such as putting the name of the reigning emperor at the start of the text. The commentary also discusses the different professions and occupations such as head of state, judge,...

    £250

  11. CLARENDON, Edward Hyde, Earl of.

    The History of the Rebellion and civil Wars in Ireland, with the true State and Condition of that...

    London: Printed by H. P. for J. Wilford … and T. Jauncy … 1720.

    First edition, a large paper copy in a presentation binding, from the family library of the Dukes of Ormond, the source of the manuscript from which it was published.

    £12500

  12. [CLIFFORD, Jeronimy].

    The case of Jeronimy Clifford, merchant and planter of Surinam. Paper, No. 160.

    [London, n.p., 1711].

    First extended account of Clifford’s long-running legal battle with the Dutch West India Company in Surinam over Corcabo, his sugar plantation. The earlier publications had been just four pages long; this work furnishes us with plantation account details and testimonies, chronologically arranged with...

    £1250

  13. CLIFFORD, Jeronimy.

    The case and replication of the legal representatives of Jeronimy Clifford; a British subject; and late merchant...

    London, C. Say, 1763.

    First edition of this comprehensive summary of the Clifford case in four parts. The work covers the years 1667-1737, the years of the case as it proceeded after Clifford’s death, followed by the latest details of the case presented on 7 October 1762 and the replication of the lawyers acting in Clifford’s...

    £1800

  14. [COCHRAN, Charles B.]

    OSTROWSKA, Wanda and Viola G. GARVIN. London’s Glory.

    London, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1945.

    First edition, a poignant collection of paintings of war-torn London by the Polish artist-in-exile Wanda Ostrowska, accompanied by extracts from her own writings and narrative by Viola Garvin.

    £75

  15. COLTON, Calvin.

    Public economy of the United States.

    New York, A. S. Barnes & Co., 1848.

    First edition of an attack on the concept of a free-trade economy in favour of the institution of a protective economy within the United States. Colton, a Massachusetts born clergy-man who also had experience as a journalist, reflects his Northern roots in arguing against the inherently ‘European’...

    £250

  16. CONDILLAC, Etienne Bonnot de, abbé.

    Le commerce et le gouvernement, considérés relativement l’un à l’autre.

    Amsterdam, et se touve à Paris, chez Jombert et Cellot, 1776.

    One of the three editions to appear in the year of the first edition, this is the one produced in two volumes with separate pagination, and without the errata, with errors partially corrected in the text. The other two editions, including the first, were published in a single volume.

    £600

  17. CORDEMOY, Géraud de.

    Divers traitez de metaphysique, d’histoire, et de politique...

    Paris, Jean Baptiste Coignard, 1691.

    First edition of these posthumously published works on metaphysics, history and politics by the lawyer, tutor to the Dauphin (future King Louis XV) and some time director of the French Academy. He was highly active in the philosophical circles of Paris. Early on he drew the attention of Bossuet, and...

    £450

  18. COWLEY, John.

    The Candidates Guide: or the Electors Rights decided. Shewing the Resolutions of the Honble the Commons of Great...

    London: Printed for J. Brindley ... and sold by Mrs. Dodd ... and by the Booksellers of London and Westminster: likewise in most great Towns...

    First edition of a guide to electoral rights ‘from the controverted Election for New-Castle-Under-Line, in April 1624, to that of Weymouth in May 1730’. Based on the Commons journals, Cowley assembles an alphabetical list of who can vote in each borough. In Lichfield, for example, the right is held...

    £450

  19. DANSON, John Towne.

    A Contribution towards an Investigation of the changes which have taken place in the condition of the people...

    London, M. & W. Collis, 1848.

    First edition, marked ‘for private circulation’, of a paper read before the Statistical Society on 21 February 1848.

    £50

  20. DELLA TORRE, Raffaele.

    Tractatus de cambiis.

    Genoa, Pietro Giovanni Calenzano, 1641.

    First edition of this monumental work on all aspects of the problems of exchange and bills of exchange by the Genoese politician, jurist and historian, Della Torre (1579-1667). Described by the economic historian De Roover as marking ‘l’apogée de l’école scolastique’, the Tractatus is remarkable...

    £1250