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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. [COURTILZ DE SANDRAS, Gatien de.]

    Les dames dans leur naturel, ou la galanterie sans façon. Sous le regne du Grand Alcandre.

    ‘A Cologne’ [but The Netherlands], ‘chez Pierre Marteau’, 1686.

    First edition, uncommon, of this tale of the debauchery of the ladies at Louis XIV’s court, purportedly ‘found in a cabinet, long after it had been written’ by the author.

    £685

  2. [CUMBERLAND, Richard.]

    Arundel. By the author of the Observer.

    London, Printed for C. Dilly … 1789.

    First edition. Richard Cumberland (1732–1811) was the grandson of the great scholar Richard Bentley, and great-grandson of the Bishop of Peterborough; he had already made his name as a playwright in London, and was also the author of a periodical paper the Observer when he published this,...

    £1500

  3. CURTIUS RUFUS, Quintus.

    De rebus gestis Alexandri Magni regis Macedonum opus … Accesserunt enim antehac nunquam visa … Omnia...

    Basel, Hieronymus Froben and Nicolaus Episcopius, March 1545.

    Handsome folio edition of Curtius Rufus’ history of Alexander the Great, edited by the German humanist Christoph Bruno (fl. 1541–1566), with extensive sixteenth-century marginal annotations.

    £2000

  4. DALLAS, R[obert] C[harles.]

    Sir Francis Darrell; or The Vortex: a Novel ... in four Volumes ...

    London, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1820.

    First edition of this epistolary novel by a friend of Byron, the first letter of which was supposedly written by him and given to Dallas (1754–1824) ‘for the purpose of inducing me to continue it’.

    £1600

  5. DANETT, Thomas.

    A Continuation of the Historie of France, from the Death of Charles the Eight where Comines endeth, till the Death...

    London, Printed by Thomas East for Thomas Charde, 1600.

    First edition, an original history composed in sequel to Danett’s translation of The Historie of Philip de Commines (1596), covering the history of France from 1498 to 1559.

    £1800

  6. [DA PORTO, Luigi.]

    ‘Lettere di Alvigi da Porto vicentino al Savorgnano, al Ghilini, e ad altri intorno ai successi della Guerra...

    [Milan, c. 1800].

    A manuscript of an influential and then-unpublished historical work by the author of the original Romeo and Juliet, copied from a sixteenth-century codex at the Bibliotheca Ambrosiana.

    £950

  7. [DARIEN EXPEDITION].

    A perfect list of the several persons residenters in Scotland, who have subscribed as adventurers in the joynt-stock...

    Glasgow, reprinted by Hutchinson & Brookman, 1827.

    First edition of this reprint of the list, first published in Edinburgh in 1696, of subscribers to William Paterson’s Company of Scotland. Paterson (1658-1719) sat on the first board of the Bank of England, but left following a disagreement with the other board members. Following this he devoted...

    £50

  8. DARRÉ, G.G.

    ‘Conferences diaconales données par Mr l’abbé Darré, Vicaire Général au GrandSéminaire d’Auch. Année...

    Auch, 1864.

    An attractively written manuscript of Abbé Darré’s practical manual for the use of young priests entering pastoral ministry, the text remaining unprinted, according to OCLC, until 1872.

    £200

  9. DAURAY DE BRIE, J.F.

    Théorie des lois sociales.

    Paris, Demonville, An XII (1804).

    First edition of Dauray de Brie’s survey of ‘natural order’. Published in the year of Napoleon’s coronation as Emperor of France, the author’s tendency is anti-revolutionary, rejecting Rousseau’s statement that rule of a minority is against the natural order. Rather Dauray de Brie deplores...

    £300

  10. DAVID, [Pierre Drapeyron de].

    A History of the Campaigns of General Pichegru, containing the Operations of the Armies of the North,...

    London, for G.G.J. & J. Robinson, 1796.

    First edition in English, printed in the same year as the French original, of this account of General Pichegru’s campaigns during the early French Revolutionary Wars.

    £185

  11. [DEATH.]

    Certificates recording the deaths of three women.

    Rome, 1762–1819.

    An interesting set of death certificates for three female residents of Rome, issued respectively by the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Lucina, the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo, and the hospital of San Salvatore (now San Giovanni in Laterano).

    £750

  12. [DEFOE, Daniel.] 

    [Incipit:] Ye True-born Englishmen proceed … 

    [London, 1701.] 

    One of a number of editions (at least seven) in 1701, priority not established, of this popular poem attacking Parliament for its failure to support the Dutch against the aggressions of Louis XIV of France.  The texts ‘vary considerably’ (Moore) across the printings, which all appeared without...

    £1000

  13. [DELAMARCHE, Alexandre, cartographer; Bernard COUDERT, lithographer.]

    ‘Atlas’.

    Paris, Legay, [c. 1889].

    An attractive set of large educational jigsaw maps showing the world, Europe, and France, preserved in its original allegorical box.

    £875

  14. DE LUCA, Giovanni Battista. 

    Il Cardinale della S.R. Chiesa pratico di Gio. Battista de Luca nell’ozio Tusculano della Primavera...

    Rome, nella stamperia della Reverenda Camera Apostolica, 1680. 

    Scarce first edition of this thorough work on the cardinalate by the Italian jurist and cardinal De Luca (1614–1683).  De Luca studied and practiced law at Naples before moving to Rome in 1645, where he established his reputation as one of Italy’s pre-eminent jurists and worked closely with...

    £300

  15. DE MOIVRE, Abraham.

    The Doctrine of Chances: or, a Method of Calculating the Probability of Events in Play.

    London, W. Pearson for the author, 1718.

    First edition, a very good copy with likely Virginian provenance, of this classic on the theory of probability and game theory, inscribed in multiple hands aboard the sixty-gun warship HMS Dunkirk, a human moment of indulgence stolen between the drudgery and danger of life aboard a Royal Naval ship.

    £14000

  16. DEPARCIEUX, Antoine.

    Essai sur les probabilités de la durée de la vie humaine; d’où l’on déduit la manière de déterminer...

    Paris, chez les frères Guerin, 1746.

    A large, crisp and illustrious copy of the first edition of a classic of statistical science: it is the first to define expectation of life – which Deparcieux calls ‘la vie moyenne’ – and the first to contain life tables for men and women.

    £3000

  17. DEUBER, A. X.

    Poetische Versuche.

    Bamberg, [cover: ‘im Komptoir der Zeitung’,] 1804.

    First and only edition, very rare, preserving the original binding of printed and gilt pink silk.

    £650

  18. DIKREITER, Otto, and Renée SINTENIS (illustrator).

    Du und Dein Pferd: Ein anmutiges, belehrendes, und ergötzliches...

    Berlin, Königsberg, & Leipzig, Kanter Verlag, [c. 1938].

    First edition (seventh to tenth thousand) of a charmingly illustrated work. The collection of short pieces of poetry and prose relating to horses, gathered from sources ranging from Shakespeare and Goethe to Xenophon and the Koran, is illustrated by the German artist Renée Sintenis (1888–1965),...

    £80

  19. DILWORTH, W. H.

    The History of the Conquest of Mexico, by the celebrated Hernan Cortes. Containing a faithful and entertaining...

    London: Printed for William Anderson … 1759.

    First edition, very scarce, of a history of the conquistadores for young readers, loosely derived from Antonio Solís de Ribadeneyra’s Historia de la Conquista de México.

    £1850

  20. DIO CASSIUS.

    Dione historico delle guerre et fatti de Romani. Tradotto di Greco in lingua vulgare per M. Nicolo Leoniceno. Con...

    Venice, Niccolò Zoppino, March 1533.

    First edition of Dio Cassius’s Roman History in any language, translated into Italian from the original Greek by Niccolò Leoniceno and preceding the Greek editio princeps, printed by Robert Estienne in 1548, by some fifteen years.

    £2500