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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. [QUESNAY, François].

    DU PONT DE NEMOURS, Pierre Samuel, editor. Physiocratie, ou constitution naturelle du gouvernement le plus...

    First edition of the ‘Bible’ of the Physiocrats and one of the most important and original works on political economy to be published before the Wealth of Nations. The excessively rare ‘Pékin’ imprint was printed in very small numbers and swiftly withdrawn because of a statement on page 104...

    £37500

  2. 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

  3. LIST, Friedrich. 

    Das nationale System der politischen Oekonomie … Erster Band: Der internationale Handel, die Handelspolitik...

    Stuttgart, J.G. Cotta, 1841. 

    First edition, the first work to articulate developing economies’ need for protective regulation, one of the earliest and most severe critiques of Adam Smith and his followers.

    £12000

  4. 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

  5. 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

  6. WALRAS, Léon.

    Théorie critique de l’impot …

    Paris, Guillaumin et Cie, 1861.

    First and only edition of Walras’ second published book on economics and an important early testimonial to his profound admiration for, and intellectual identification with, his father. In the lengthy preface, he reviews the ideas contained in the works of Auguste Walras, including the concept of ‘rarety’...

    £5750

  7. FISHER, Irving.

    Mathematical Investigations in the Theory of Value and Prices. Read April 27, 1892. [in:] Transactions of...

    New Haven, by the Academy, 1892.

    First appearance of Fisher’s ‘startlingly original PhD thesis’ (Blaug) which contained, among other things, the design of a machine to illustrate general equilibrium in a multi-market economy. This work expounds his monetary theories and established his international reputation.

    £5500

  8. PAGNINI, Giovanni Francesco; Francesco BALDUCCI PEGOLOTTI; Giovanni da UZZANO.

    Della decima e di varie altre gravezze imposte dal...

    Lisbona e Lucca, (vols. 3-4: e si vende da Giuseppe Bouchard librajo francese in Firenze), 1765-66.

    First edition, scarce on the market, of a highly important work in the history of economics and world trade. Pagnini (1714-89) worked in the financial department of the Tuscan government and published translations of several of Locke’s works. The Della decima is his most important work, giving ‘a...

    £5500

  9. 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

  10. STEUART, Sir James Denham.

    The works, political, metaphisical, and chronological... now first collected by General Sir James Steuart,...

    London, T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1805.

    First and only edition of Steuart’s collected works, volumes I to IV containing the Inquiry into the principles of political Oeconomy, volume V containing Steuart’s various writings on money and coinage, volume VI his philosophical writings, together with anecdotes of his life.

    £4750

  11. THÜNEN, Johann Heinrich von.

    Der isolirte Staat in Beziehung auf Landwirthschaft und Nationalökonomie …[Part I and part II/1].

    Rostock, G. B. Leopold, 1842–50.

    Scarce second edition of the first part, revised and enlarged, being the repository of Thünen’s major theories, and the edition used by Roscher in his Geschichte der National-Oekonomik, here bound with the first edition of part II/1, the last to be published during the author’s lifetime;...

    £4500

  12. NIEUHOF, Jan; Athanasius KIRCHER; and John OGILBY, translator.

    An Embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces,...

    London, John Macock for the author, 1669.

    First English edition, beautifully illustrated, recounting the Dutch traveller Jan Nieuhof’s journey as part of Peter de Goyer and Jacob de Keizer’s embassy to Peking between 1655 and 1657. Having previously been employed by the Dutch West India Company in Brazil, Nieuhof joined the Dutch...

    £4000

  13. [SMITH, Adam.] [STEWART, Dugald.]

    Account of the life and writings of Adam Smith, LL.D. From the Transactions of the Royal Society...

    [Edinburgh? N.p. 1794?].

    First separate edition of the first ‘Life’ of Adam Smith, and one of only a handful of copies that were printed for limited private issue. A year later, it was incorporated into the Essays on Philosophical Subjects, and later in editions of the Wealth of Nations. Stewart (1753-1828) read the paper...

    £3750

  14. 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

  15. 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

  16. [GREAT BRITAIN: PARLIAMENT].

    [Drop-head title:] ‘An act for repealing the several duties of customs and excise, and granting...

    London, Charles Eyre and Andrew Strahan, 1787.

    Rare first edition of the consolidation act that revolutionised British handling of customs and excise and the problem of smuggling, in line with Adam Smith’s 1776 recommendations.

    £2750

  17. [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

  18. MILLAR, John.

    Observations concerning the distinction of ranks in society. Under the following heads: 1. Of the ranks and condition...

    London, Murray, 1773.

    Second London edition, ‘greatly enlarged’, first published 1771. The first section of Millar’s book is a study of matrilineal ‘savage’ societies, in which early social development counts most when it comes to kinship with the mother, is remarkably prescient (see Morgan, Systems)....

    £1450

  19. MALTHUS, Thomas Robert.

    Principles of political economy considered with a view to their practical application.

    London, Murray, 1820.

    First edition. The Principles were developed through controversy with Ricardo, especially with regard to the theory of value, but the origins of the essay are in the Essay, which constituted Malthus’s earliest writings on prices, income and savings. The difference that emerges between...

    £1400

  20. 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