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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BEVERIDGE, William Henry.
Full employment in a free society: a report ...
London, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, [1944].
First edition of the second report by the social reformer and economist W. H. Beveridge (1879-1963), a sequel to the epoch-making Beveridge report on Social Insurance and Allied Services made to the Government in December 1942. Beveridge had earlier published Unemployment: a Problem of Industry (1909),...
£50
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[BEWICK, Thomas?]
Twenty-six rubbings from engraved woodblocks of the heads of Kings and Queens and England, apparently never published...
[1790-1805?]
Twenty-six apparently unrecorded wood-engravings – heads of the monarchs of England from William the Conqueror to George III – these images taken by rubbing from the blocks rather than printing. The engravings bear strong similarity to the 26 which appear in An Abridgement of the History...
£750
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[BIANCHI, Isidoro.]
Compendio della vita e miracoli della B. Elisabetta Picenardi del Terz’Ordine de’ Servi di M.V. E del culto...
Cremona, per il Feraboli, 1805.
Second edition (first Rome 1804) of this account of the life and miracles of Elisabetta Picenardi (1428–1468) of the Servite Order, who was beatified in November 1804 after Pope Pius VII issued confirmation of her local cultus. The work is attributed to the Camaldolese monk Isidoro Bianchi (1731–1808)....
£350
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BLACKERBY, Samuel. Nathaniel BLACKERBY, editor.
The First Part of the Justice of the Peace his Companion; or, a Summary of all...
London, E. & R. Nutt and R. Gosling for J. Walhoe, 1734.
Later editions of this important source of information on crime and the work of the magistracy in early seventeenth-century England. Samuel Blackerby’s Justice of the Peace his Companion … was first published by Walhoe in 1711, and appeared under the title Cases in Law wherein Justices of Peace...
£450
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BLANQUI, Jérôme Adolphe, l’Ainé.
Histoire de l’économie politique en Europe, depuis les anciens jusqu’à nos jours, suivie...
Paris, Guillaumin, 1837.
First edition of ‘the first major history of political economy’ (The New Palgrave). Blanqui (1798–1854) taught at the Institution Massin, where he came into contact with J. B. Say, who was greatly impressed by him. In 1833, he succeeded Say as holder of the chair of political and industrial economy...
£125
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BODEMER, Heinrich.
Die Wirkungen der Creditpapiere in Bezug die Vehmehrung der Banken in Deutschland.
Leipzig, Heinrich Hubner, 1853.
First edition of a rare German treatise on banking, money, paper money and credit. Bodemer argues for a bettering and widening of credit in Prussia at a crucial time of its economic development, where both production and trade required ever more more advanced, unified and modern financial tools.
£125
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[BODONI.]
D. Francesco Giacinto Rovero Cavaliere di Piea, e della Sagra Religione, ed Ordine Militare de’ Santi Morizio, e...
Saluzzo, Giovandomenico Bodoni, [December 1783].
Very rare survival, apparently unrecorded, of this bill of public order laws printed by Giovandomenico Bodoni at Saluzzo.
£1250
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BOLAÑO, Roberto.
2666.
Barcelona, Editorial Anagrama, [2004].
First edition of the Chilean writer’s last novel, the major preoccupation of the last five years of his life.
£500
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[BOLINGBROKE, Henry St John, Viscount].
Letters, on the Spirit of Patriotism: on the Idea of a Patriot King: and on the State of...
London: Printed for A. Millar … 1749.
First authorised edition. Written in 1738 for the Prince of Wales, the manuscript was then entrusted to Pope who had it printed, to Bolingbroke’s fury: he bought up the entire edition and had it burnt in October 1744 (only two imperfect copies survive, at the British Library and Princeton). He later...
£375
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BONACINA, Martino.
Tractationes Variae ... Prima ... De Simonia. Secunda, De Alienatione bonorum ecclesiasticorum. Tertia, De Largitione...
Venice, Giunta, 1628.
Rare early edition of six legal tracts by Bonacina, one of the foremost jurists, theologians and moralists of his age. Bonacina was to die suddenly three years later, immediately after having been appointed Nuncio of Urban VIII at the court of the Emperor.
£275
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BONAPARTE, Jerôme-Napoléon.
Letter signed as governor of Les Invalides to the members of the Conseil d’administration de la...
Paris, Hôtel des Invalides, 16 February 1849.
Jérôme-Napoléon Bonaparte (1784–1860) was the youngest brother of Napoleon I and reigned as Jerome Napoleon I, King of Westphalia, between 1807 and 1813. He became governor of Les Invalides when his nephew Prince Louis Napoleon became president of the second French Republic in 1848.
£300
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BONET, Nicolas.
Habes Nicholai Bonetti viri p[er]spicacissimi quattuor volumina: Metaphysicam videl[icet] naturale[m] phylosophia[m]...
Venice, Boneto Locatello for the heirs of Ottaviano Scoto, 1505.
First collected edition of the works of the French Franciscan Friar Nicolas Bonet (c. 1280–1343), owned and annotated by the Italian historian, biographer, and physician Paolo Giovio (1486–1552).
£4000
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[BOOKBINDER.]
Sentence rendue en la chambre criminelle du Châtelet de Paris, qui condamne Guillaume Maillet, maître relieur,...
Paris, Jean-Charles Desaint, 1782.
Scarce pamphlet documenting the misdemeanours of the Parisian master bookbinder Guillaume Maillet.
£575
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BOOTH, Charles.
In darkest England and the way out.
London, Salvation Army, [1890.]
First edition. ‘In 1890, the same year that Stanley published In Darkest Africa, Booth published In Darkest England. In this book he analysed the causes of pauperism and vice of the period, and proposed a remedy by ten expedients. These included land settlement, emigration, rescue work among prostitutes...
£50
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BOSE, Johann Andreas.
Io. Andr. Bosii introductio generalis in notitiam rerumpublicarum orbis universi. Accedunt eiusdem dissertationes...
Jenae, Johann Bielke, 1676.
First edition of a pioneering work of statistics and rare Americanum, by the philosopher and historian Johann Andreas Bose (1624-1674). Bose’s crucial intuition as a student of human societies lies in his advocacy of interdisciplinary investigations. His work ‘on all the states in the world’ marshalls...
£1500
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BOSWELL, James.
A Letter to the People of Scotland, on the alarming Attempt to infringe the Articles of Union, and introduce a...
London: Printed for Charles Dilly … 1785.
First edition of Boswell’s second Letter to the People of Scotland, written to oppose a bill in Parliament for reducing the number of the Lords of Session from fifteen to ten. Boswell, who believed that this attack on the highest court in Scotland for civil causes was a direct infringement of the Articles...
£1500
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[BOUCHET, Jean.]
Les triu[m]phes de la noble et amoureuse dame, et l’art de honnestement aymer, compose par le Traverseur des...
Paris, Estienne Caveiller for Pierre Sergent, 6 June 1539.
Unrecorded issue of Jean Bouchet’s contemplative work of moral theology in prose and verse explicitly intended for a female readership, following the personified Soul in dialogue with several virtues as she attempts to combat the forces of earthly temptation with the power of divine grace.
£4500
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BOUDIER DE VILLEMERT, Pierre-Joseph.
L’Andrometrie, ou examen philosophique de l’homme. Par Monsieur l’Abbé de Villemaire.
Paris, chez Brunet, 1753.
First editions of two scarce works by the philosopher, moralist and Parisian avocat Boudier de Villemert (1716–1801), best known as the author of L’Ami des Femmes.
£2500
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BOUTROLLE, J.G.
Le parfait bouvier, ou instruction concernant la connoissance des boeufs & vaches, leur âge, maladies & symptômes,...
Rouen, the widow Besongne and J.J. Besongne the younger, [1766?].
Early (first?) edition of one of the most successful French veterinary guides. With the majority of early veterinary literature focused on the most highly prized animal, the horse, the present text is one of the few to address primarily the care of bovines, with sections also on pigs, sheep, and...
£225
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BRADLAUGH, Charles.
Catalogue of the library of the late Charles Bradlaugh.
London, Mrs H. Bradlaugh Bonner, 1891.
Only edition of this private production, printed by Bradlaugh’s daughter, Hypatia, at the press of her husband, a printer, ‘not merely to publish a descriptive list of the volumes contained in the library in order to facilitate their sale, but to make somewhat of a memento of Mr Bradlaugh himself’...
£100