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.

  1. [SEVILLE.]

    Mercantile contract between Sebastián de Baeza of Seville and Hernán López de Segovia, almost certainly relating...

    Seville, 25 July 1576.

    A commercial document from the heyday of Seville’s trade with the Indies. Drawn up for Sebastián de Baeza, a resident of the barrio of San Bartolomé in Seville, the document recapitulates a previous agreement of 25 June 1576 between, on the one hand, Hernán López de Segovia and, on...

    £1200

  2. COPE, Walter, Sir.

    ‘Enchiridion. Certaine breife Remonstrances offered unto his Ma[jes]tie … Touching divers Inconveniences...

    [London?], 1613.

    A fine, unpublished manuscript treatise on the balance of trade, dedicated to James I, by the administrator, politician, and collector Sir Walter Cope (c. 1553–1614).

    £11000

  3. [TRADE AND EXCISE].

    An Additional Act for the better improvement and advancing the receipts of the Excise and New-Impost. At the...

    London, Henry Hills and Iohn Field, Printers to His Highness, 1657.

    First edition. The most substantial part of the Act, entitled ‘A Book of Values of Merchandize imported, according to which, excize is to be paid by the first buyer’, includes a 40-page alphabetical list of imported commodities, each recorded with the respective payable duty. A lively and detailed...

    £250

  4. [OSBORNE, Francis.]

    Historical memoires on the reigns of Queen Elizabeth, and King James.

    London: Printed by T. Grismond, and are to be sold by T. Robinson … in Oxon. 1658.

    First edition of Osborne’s history of the reigns of Elizabeth I and James VI and I, two exemplary leaders of the Protestant English cause, with which Osborne was much taken in his works.

    £475

  5. NIEUHOF, Jean, and Jean LE CARPENTIER (translator). 

    L’ambassade de la compagnie orientale des provinces unies...

    Leiden, Jacob de Meurs, 1665. 

    Lavishly illustrated first French edition of Nieuhof’s travels through China from 1655 to 1657. 

    £3500

  6. NIEUHOF, Jan, and Georg HORN (translator). 

    Legatio Batavica ad magnum Tartariae chamum Sungteium, modernum Sinae...

    Amsterdam, Jacob van Meurs, 1668. 

    First edition in Latin, beautifully illustrated, of Nieuhof’s account of his travels in China between 1655 and 1657, one of the most important early modern non-Jesuit studies. 

    £5000

  7. PETTY, William, Sir.

    Another essay in political arithmetick, concerning the growth of the City of London: with the measures,...

    1682. London, printed by H.H. for Mark Pardoe, 1683.

    First edition, exceptionally scarce – indeed unique in its uncut and unbound state – of Petty’s first work of political arithmetic, a landmark work of statistics, demography, and economics.

    £12000

  8. [ROYAL FISHERY COMPANY.]

    A Collection of Advertisements, Advices, and Directions, relating to the Royal Fishery within the British...

    London, printed for H.M. and sold by J. Whitlock, 1695.

    First edition. The Royal Fishery Company, incorporated in 1662, had great trouble finding subscribers. Initially, Charles II offered £9000 as an incentive to investors but on these only raising £3680 he withdrew his undertaking, instead allowing a lottery to aid the Company’s fortunes. After attempts...

    £200

  9. [BANK OF SCOTLAND.]

    Act of Parliament for erecting a bank in Scotland. Edinburgh, July 17 1695.

    Edinburgh, printed by the heirs and successors of Andrew Anderson, 1695.

    Very rare edition of the Act of Parliament establishing Scotland’s first and oldest bank, founded just one year after the Bank of England.

    £650

  10. [ROYAL LUSTRING COMPANY.]

    The Report of the Committee of the House of Commons, to whom the Petition of the Royal Lustring-Company...

    London, E. Whitlock, 1698.

    First edition; a French version appeared the same year. Since its foundation in 1688, the Royal Lustring Company (importers of ‘lustrings’ or ‘alamodes’ – a fine, light, glossy, black silk) had enjoyed special monopolistic privileges which it had exploited to the full. However, by the end...

    £275

  11. ANSWER OF THE MERCHANTS-PETITIONERS,

    and Trustees for the Factory at Legorn, to the Account of Damages, laid to the Charge of the...

    London: Printed in the Year 1704.

    First and only edition, scarce, part of a fascinating trade (and piracy) dispute involving English merchants in Livorno (or Leghorn), which brought England and Tuscany to the brink of war in 1704.

    £1350

  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...

    £650

  13. [LONDON ASSURANCE CORPORATION.]

    By-laws, orders, and rules, for the good government of the corporation of the London assurance....

    London, [n.p.], 1722.

    First edition of the by-laws of the London Assurance Corporation, which, along with The Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation, was constituted and granted sole rights, excepting private individuals, to the granting of assurance and bottomry by ‘The Bubble Act’ of 1720. The right to self-govern, reflected...

    £550

  14. POPE, [Alexander]. 

    Of the Use of Riches, an Epistle to the Right Honorable Allen Lord Bathurst. 

    London, J. Wright for Lawton Gilliver, 1732. 

    First edition, first issue, with p. 13 uncorrected and the erratum on p. 20. 

    £200

  15. [VALLI, Francesco di Andrea.] 

    Manuscript receipt book. 

    Villa di Vaglie, Cortona, 1735-1767. 

    An interesting manuscript receipt book recording the affairs and transactions of Francesco di Andrea Valli (or Vagli) and his sons Pietro and Egidio, landowners and farmers from Villa di Vaglie near Cortona, over the course of four decades. 

    £375

  16. 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

  17. GEE, Joshua.

    The trade and navigation of Great-Britain considered: shewing that the surest way for a nation to increase in riches,...

    London, A. Bettesworth, C. Hitch … and S. Birt, 1738.

    Fourth edition of Gee’s most important work, first published in 1729. Written at a time of declining exports, decaying agriculture and high unemployment Trade and navigation discusses foreign trade with strong protectionist tendencies. Gee is keen to improve trade with the North American colonies,...

    £250

  18. [MABBUT, George].

    Sir Isaac Newton’s tables for renewing and purchasing the leases of cathedral-churches and colleges, according...

    London, printed for Thomas Astley, 1742

    Sixth edition, first published in 1686, this issue was sometimes also published with a separate title page and imprint reading, ‘The money’d man’s pocket-book’, London, 1742’ immediately preceding the title-page of the second part. A series of tables calculating the amounts owed on leases based...

    £125

  19. ROUQUET, Jean-André. 

    The present State of the Arts in England.  By M. Rouquet, member of the Royal Academy of Painting and...

    London, for J. Nourse, 1755. 

    First edition in English, published in the same year as the French original, from the library of the great Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith (1723–1790). 

    £19500

  20. BELLONI, Girolami, Marchese.

    Del Commercio dissertazione.

    Rome, Niccolo and Marco Pagliarini, 1757.

    Second edition to be authorized by Belloni, (first, 1750) – the first edition to include the author’s considerations on ‘imaginary money’ (pp. 135-154) – of a work notable for its argument in favour of restrictions on the export of money by the Vatican banker Girolamo Belloni (1688–1760)....

    £300