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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. BRAY, Charles.

    The philosophy of necessity; or, the law of consequences; as applicable to mental, moral, and social science.

    London, Longman et al, 1841.

    First edition. Bray (1811-84), a Coventry ribbon manufacturer, was converted to phrenology by George Combe, with whom he formed a close association; he was also close in early life to George Eliot and to Herbert Spencer. The Philosophy of Necessity was published during the Chartist ferment, when Bray...

    £450

  2. [Brewer, George].

    The Siamese tales: being a collection of stories told to the son of the Mandarin Sam-Sib, for the purpose of...

    London, Vernor & Hood and Champante & Whitrow, 1796.

    First edition of an anonymously published collection of ‘Siamese tales’, written as fables to increase their appeal to children. In the Introduction, the author states that the purpose of these supposedly translated tales is to ‘promote the love of virtue through the medium of fiction’ (p. 1)....

    £950

  3. BROOKE, Sir Robert.

    The Reading of M. Robert Brook, serjeant of the law, and recorder of London, upon the stat. of Magna...

    London, M. Flesher and R. Young for Laurence Chapman and William Coke, 1641.

    First edition, a treatise on the interpretation of a chapter of Magna Carta which relates to treason, murder and burglary. It was written in 1551 and circulated in manuscript, but was first published here on the eve of the Civil War – the opening words make clear the relevance: ‘Inprimis,...

    £200

  4. BROUGHAM, Henry.

    Present state of the law. The speech of Henry Brougham, Esq., M.P., in the House of Commons, on Thursday, February...

    London, Henry Colburn, 1828.

    First edition of the famous speech by the future Whig Lord Chancellor Henry Brougham on the necessity of a Royal Commission to investigate the state of the English legal system, which was to set in train the fundamental reforms that were enacted in the second third of the nineteenth century. Lasting...

    £250

  5. BROUGHAM, Lord Henry.

    Lives of men of letters and science who flourished in the time of George III … with portraits, engraved...

    London, Charles Knight and Co., 1845-47.

    First edition of the first volume (1845), later edition of the second volume (dated 1847, first published 1846) of Brougham’s lives which includes Voltaire, Hume, Davy, Johnson, and Adam Smith to name a few stars in the firmament of the reign of George III, or, in Brougham’s terms, the ‘Augustan...

    £250

  6. BROWNING, Elizabeth Barrett.

    Poems before Congress …

    London: Chapman and Hall … 1860.

    First edition of a slender collection of seven poems on the cause of Italian independence, and one attacking slavery in the United States (‘A Curse for a Nation’). The Congress of the title had been planned for Paris in January 1860, but Austria withdrew on learning that Napoleon III meant to use...

    £200

  7. [BURDETT.] COBBETT, William.

    Cobbett’s remarks on Sir F. Burdett’s Letter to his constituents …. Taken from the Weekly political...

    London, T. Broom, [1810.]

    First separate edition. Cobbett's Political Register of 24 March 1810 reprinted The Address of Sir Francis Burdett to his Constituents and prefaced it with a robust defence of Burdett. Here Cobbett's defence appears along with the warrant for Burdett's arrest and his letter challenging...

    £200

  8. [BURDETT, Sir Francis - Trial of.]

    The Trial of Sir Francis Burdett, Bart., at Leicester, on Thursday, March 23d,...

    London, William Hone, 1820.

    First edition of Burdett’s trial for seditious libel after the publication of his Letter to the Electors of Westminster. In response to the Peterloo Massacre of August 1819, Sir Francis Burdett had published a letter calling on the electors of Westminster to ‘join the general voice’...

    £150

  9. [BURDETT, Sir Francis.]

    Parliamentary reform. A Full and accurate report of the proceedings at the meeting held at the Crown...

    London, J. H. Hart, 1809.

    First edition, the report of the famous Reform Dinner of 1809. Others on the committee of the ‘Friends of Reform’ included Thomas Brand, Capel Lofft, John Cartwright, and William Frend; 1200 tickets were issued, and were being touted for 5 guineas. A well-known satirical engraving of the event...

    £175

  10. BURDETT, Sir Francis.

    Speech … at the Crown and Anchor tavern, July 31, 1810, on the occasion of dining with his constituents,...

    London, W. Burton for J. Barker, 1810.

    First edition. ‘I consider this as one of the proudest and happiest moments of my life …’

    £150

  11. BURDETT, Sir Francis.

    The Address of Sir Francis Burdett to his constituents, in a letter, dated March 23, denying the power of...

    London, T. Broom, [1810].

    First edition(?) in book form, written in response to the arrest of the radical John Gale Jones for breach of privilege after he had challenged the exclusion of ‘strangers’ (i.e. the public) from the Commons debates about the disastrous Walcheren expedition.

    £300

  12. CAGNAZZI, Luca de Samuele.

    Analisi dell’ economia privata e pubblica degli antichi relativamente a quella de’ moderni …

    Naples, Società filomatica, 1830.

    First edition. Cagnazzi (1764–1852) was originally a teacher of mathematics by profession, receiving a professorship at Naples in 1806. ‘His life was full of trouble; having been concerned in political intrigues, he had to flee from Naples and, after wandering, nearly always on foot, through Italy...

    £500

  13. CAMPANELLA, Tommaso.

    A discourse touching the Spanish monarchy. Wherein we have a political glasse representing each particular...

    London, printed for Philemon Stephens in Paul’s Church-Yard, 1654.

    First edition in English. The translator’s preface to the reader is unsigned, but the translation is usually attributed to Edward Chilmead (see Oxford DNB). He explains that he could not discover in which language the Discourse was originally written in, but that the recent [1653] Latin edition published...

    £4750

  14. 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

  15. [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

  16. [CANNON, George.]

    A few hints relative to the texture of mind, and the manufacture of conscience. Published for the benefit of...

    London, Thomas Davison, [1820].

    Second edition, as scarce as the first, of this remarkable attack by the pornographer, solicitor, and radical publisher George Cannon (under his pseudonym the Rev. Erasmus Perkins) on the sentencing for blasphemous libel of the Jamaican radical preacher and anti-slavery advocate Robert Wedderburn....

    £350

  17. [CANON LAW. SPAIN].

    [Drop-head title:] Instrucion de la practica y estilo que deue tener una persona que quiere tratar en Espana...

    [N. p. n. p., n. d., in or before 1600].

    First and only edition of a very rare work of Canon law: a manual for curiales de Roma, officials charged with implementing Canon law in the Spanish provinces. The handbook first of all recommends the most financially convenient and effective ways of transferring payments to Rome and of maintaining trusted...

    £500

  18. CARAVADOSSI, Enrico.

    La moderna filosofia convinta d’inganno nelle sue promesse di felicità libertà ed uguaglianza ragionamenti...

    Turin, Giammichele Brioio, 1793.

    First and seemingly only edition of this attack on the false promises of the philosophes, by the Torinese Dominican friar Enrico Caravadossi.

    £395

  19. 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

  20. CARLILE, Richard.

    The Life of Thomas Paine, written purposely to bind with his writings.

    London, M. A. Carlile, 1820.

    First edition, written by Carlile (1790-1843) during his incarceration in Dorchester prison. ‘His greatest contribution to the radical cause, and the most momentous, was his republishing of the writings of Tom Paine, which he did serially in the Weekly, individually as cheap pamphlets, and also...

    £250