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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[ELIZABETH II.] KEYSTONE (PARIS).
La Princesse Elisabeth fille du Duc d’York, et héritier, du trône d’Angleterre …
1936.
Princess Elizabeth on the day of the announcement of the abdication of Edward VII.
£1200
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ELLIS, Charles Thomas.
Practical Remarks and Precedents of Proceedings in Parliament; comprising the Standing Orders of both Houses,...
London, Brooke and Rider et al., 1802.
First edition of the earliest comprehensive treatment of the important subject of private bill legislation, being a greatly revised and enlarged version of the author’s Solicitor’s Instructor in Parliament concerning Estate and Inclosure Bills (1799). Further, updated editions and supplements were...
£550
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ELLIS, William.
A Compleat System of Experienced Improvements Made on Sheep, Grass-Lambs and House-Lambs…
London, printed for T. Astley, 1749.
First edition, scarce in commerce, of an innovative manual of sheep farming and husbandry.
£475
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[EMBOSSED BINDING.] DE LA RUE, Thomas (binder). SHERIDAN, Louisa Henrietta.
The Comic Offering; or Ladies’ Melange of...
London, Smith, Elder, and Co., 1832.
An appropriately light-hearted embossed binding, on the second outing of this compendium of humorous stories, verses and vignettes to amuse the highly refined young ladies of the early nineteenth century. The publisher’s advertisements mention other works that are in ‘elegantly embossed’...
£300
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ENDERS, Elizabeth Crump.
Swinging Lanterns.
New York and London, D. Appleton and Co., 1923.
First edition of this celebrated Chinese travel memoir by Elizabeth Crump Enders, a vivid depiction of China in the 1920s formerly in the possession of Josephine del Drago, American heiress and Chinese art collector.
£100
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ENGELS, Frederich, and Georgi Plekhanov, translator.
Людвигъ Фейербахъ. Сочиненiе Фр. Энгельса....
Geneva, “Sotsial’-demokrata”, 1892.
First Russian edition, rare. Engels and Marx’s analysis of Feuerbach’s philosophy, which played such a vital role in the development of the Marxist legacy, translated by Georgi Plekhanov in the years leading up to the first Russian revolution.
£100
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[ENGLAND, PARLIAMENT.]
An ordinance of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament. For the speedy raising and levying of moneyes,...
London, for John Wright, 27 July 1643.
The ordinance which introduced Excise into England. ‘Excise’ is defined in the OED as follows: ‘A duty charged on home goods, either in the process of their manufacture or before their sale to the home consumers … In England this kind of taxation was first adopted in 1643, in acknowledged imitation...
£275
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EPICTETUS.
To tou Epiktetou encheiridion. Ex editione Joannis Upton accurate expressum.
Glasgow, Foulis, 1751.
The first miniature Foulis edition of Epictetus in Greek, and the first Foulis Epictetus in Greek only; it had been preceded by a larger format, duodecimo (1748) edition in Greek and Latin. A 1765 reissue was, according to ESTC, reset.
£900
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ERASMUS, Desiderius.
Paraclesis, id est adhortio ad sanctissimum ac saluberrimum Cristianae philosophiae studium …
Basel, Johann Froben, February 1520.
Attractive contemporary Erasmus sammelband, superbly eloquent in its physical union of three treatises without which the humanist’s Praise of Folly would risk gross misinterpretation.
£5500
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ERLENBACH, Jean Jacques.
Compliment de Congé en rimes francaises, a monsieur Ziegert, sur son depart pour Halle à l’université...
Breslau, Charles Guillaume Grass, [1754].
Charming and apparently unrecorded poem written on the occasion of the departure for the University of Halle of an unidentified Mr Ziegert by his disgruntled friend Johan Jakob Erlenbach (who, according to a footnote, did not expect his poem to be printed).
£150
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ESCHER, Franklin.
Practical Investing.
New York, The Bankers Publishing Co., 1914.
First edition. In the words of a contemporary reviewer, this book “is most serviceable and has the lasting virtue of dealing with a technical subject in a readable manner” (Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, p. 245). Concise and accessible, this early work of investment...
£100
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[FASCISM.]
Ordinamento Corporativo dello Stato Fascista.
Padua, Edizione di propaganda corporative, 1935.
Italian Fascism primarily followed the economic model of corporatism to organise capital and labour interest groups into trade unions and employer associations such as agriculture, industry, commercial trade, professionals and artists, as well as banks and credit associations. These trade associations...
£2500
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FAY, Charles Ryle.
Copartnership in Industry.
Cambridge, at the University Press, 1913.
First edition. Charles Ryle Fay (1884–1961) was a favourite pupil of Alfred Marshall, and in 1908 was elected to a fellowship at Christ’s College where he later became a reader in Economic History.
£50
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FENNING, Daniel.
The Ready Reckoner; or Trader’s most useful Assistant, in buying and selling all sorts of Commodities either...
London: Printed for S. Crowder … and B. C. Collins … in Salisbury. 1785.
First edition thus, edited by the mathematician and almanac-maker Joseph Moon of Salisbury.
£250
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FERRI, Giovanni.
Discours sur les principes de l’education lycéenne, prononcé à l’inauguration du Lycée d’Angers, par...
Angers, Frères Mame, 1806.
Only edition, rare, of this speech by the Italian writer and educationalist Giovanni Ferri de St. Constant (1755-1830), on the inauguration of the Lycée at Angers. Ferri, who had worked in France before the radicalisation of the Revolution had led to his exile in England, had returned to France with...
£225
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FIELDING, Henry.
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling …
Paris: Printed by Fr. Amb. Didot the eldest, and sold by J. N. Pissot, and Barrois Junior … Booksellers. 1780.
The first French edition in English of Fielding’s masterpiece, only the second English edition to be printed abroad (after Dresden, 1774). Here the text benefits from critical attention by Didot, who collated Murphy’s edition of Fielding’s Works with the last separate English edition.
£425
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[FIELDING, Sarah.]
The adventures of David Simple: containing an account of his travels through the cities of London and Westminster,...
London, printed for A. Millar, 1744.
First edition, very fine. The first and most popular novel of Sarah, the sister of Henry Fielding, who was to provide a preface and a few revisions to the second edition.
£1500
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[FISCHER, Friedrich Christoph Jonathan, and Pierre-Gustave BRUNET (translator)].
Les nuits d’érpeuve des villageoises...
Paris, Jules Gay, 1861.
First edition in French, numbered 26 of 100 copies, of this obscure study, first published in 1780 as Über die Probenächte der teutschen Bauernmädchen (‘On the Rehearsal Nights of Teutonic Peasant Women’). Brunet’s ‘postface’ builds on the comparisons made in Fischer’s original...
£150
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FISHER, George.
The instructor: or, young man’s best companion … to which is added the family’s best companion.
London, for A. Bettesworth and C. Hitch et al. [not before 1735].
Second edition (the first appeared in 1727). ‘Volumes entitled “The Young Man’s companion” exist in many versions and go back to the 1680s when William Mather produced the first of them. They are compendiums of useful information, intended for self-improvement. They concentrate on English, Mathematics,...
£350
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FISHER, Irving.
The theory of interest. As determined by impatience of spending income and opportunity to invest it.
New York, Macmillan, 1930.
First edition. Fisher’s Theory of Interest, a revised version of his earlier book The Rate of Interest (1907), was dedicated to John Rae and Böhm-Bawerk, and is a further development of their ideas: ‘its greatness as a book lies wholly in its outstanding pedagogic qualities......
£750