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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. MILL, John Stuart, and Jánosi FERENCZ (translator).

    A képviseleti kormány.

    Pest, Emich Gusztáv Tulajdona, 1867.

    First Hungarian edition of Considerations on representative Government, Mill’s most important political work after On Liberty. In his major work on political institutions Mill ‘discusses to what extent forms of government are a matter of choice, the criterion of a “good form of government”, and...

    £875

  2. MILL, John Stuart; Hugo KOSTERKA and Václav PETRŽELKA, translators.

    O Svobodě. Přeložili H. Kosterka a V. Petrželka...

    Prague, Czech student magazine press, 1891.

    First edition in Czech of On Liberty (1859), very rare, translated by the prominent translator and publisher Hugo Kosterka (1867–1956), editor and co-founder of the Moderní revue, and Václav Petrželka (1869–1927).

    £650

  3. MILL, John Stuart; Jan VÁŇA, translator.

    O Individualitě. Z anglického jazyka přeložil J. Váňa …

    Váňa … Prague, Militký and Novák, 1880.

    First edition in Czech, very rare, of Mill’s ‘On Individuality’, being chapter three of On Liberty (1859) – the first portion of that text to appear in Czech, and perhaps the earliest appearance of anything by Mill in that language. The translator was Jan Váňa (1847–1915),...

    £350

  4. [MILL, John Stuart, witness].

    Report from the Select Committee on the Income and Property Tax; together with the Proceedings of...

    [London], Ordered by the House of Commons, to be Printed, 1 August 1861.

    First edition. This is the concluding report of the Commons Select Committee that had been responsible for investigating possible modifications to income tax policy. John Stuart Mill appeared before the Committee on the 18 June 1861, where he reiterated his central belief that the current system of income...

    £175

  5. MYRDAL, Gunnar.

    Asian Drama. An inquiry into the poverty of nations.

    New York, Pantheon, 1968.

    Third printing, published in the same year as the first edition, of this important study which took ten years to complete.

    £65

  6. [NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH.]

    Regularization of Business Investment. A conference of the Universities-National Bureau...

    Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1954.

    First edition. ‘The question this book raises and helps to answer is whether the entire responsibility for preventing the next depression is to be left to government, or whether a leading role can be assumed by private enterprise, through regularization of investment expenditures. Twenty-six...

    £120

  7. NICHOLSON, Joseph Shield.

    Tenant’s Gain not Landlord’s Loss, and some other economic Aspects of the Land Question.

    Edinburgh, David Douglas, 1883.

    First edition. ‘The vitality of popular fallacies is remarkable, and the old mercantile notion of trade that one man’s gain is necessarily another man’s loss still prevails as regards compensation for agricultural improvements. The exposure of this and other fallacies is one of the aims...

    £250

  8. 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

  9. 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

  10. [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

  11. [PAPER TRADE.] 

    Arrest du conseil d’état du roi, portant modération et interprétation de plusieurs articles du tarif des...

    [Besançon?, 1772?] 

    A seemingly unrecorded issue of this decree governing tariffs on paper and cardboard in Louis XV’s France, with no imprint but with the colophon ‘fait à Besançon le 18 avril 1772, signé, Lacoré’. 

    £175

  12. [PASCOLI, Livio.] ‘Vilio LOCASPI’.

    Del modo di mantenere abolita la mendicità, discorso familiare.

    Verona, Mainardi, 1817.

    Only edition, very rare, of this proposal for the abolition of begging, and of poverty more broadly, by the poet and essayist Livio Pascoli.

    £285

  13. PICK, G. Vesian.

    Digest of political economy: the principles of John Stuart Mill.

    London, Swan Sonnerschein & Co., 1893.

    Second edition (first 1892) of Pick’s epitome of J.S. Mill’s Principles of political economy. Stating his aim as to ‘present a bird’s-eye view of Political Economy’, with a secondary intent of being used by students as a companion volume to the treatise itself, Pick aims to bring a new simplicity...

    £100

  14. [PORTUGAL.]

    Memorias economicas da Academia Real das Sciencias de Lisboa, para o adiantamento da Agricultura, das Artes, e da Industria...

    Lisbon, Officina da Academia Real das Sciencias, 1789 1815.

    First edition. The long period of publication accounts for the rarity of complete sets of this important periodical, containing articles on industry, agriculture, political economy, statistics and general social and geographical matters. They exhibit the continued influence of Physiocratic ideas after...

    £750

  15. RENTSCH, Carl, Edler von Ehrenthal.

    Die Staatswirtschaft nach Naturgesetzen.

    Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1819.

    First edition. Rentsch’s political economy offers an in-depth analysis of concepts such as income and expenditure, value and cost, market value, and competition; particular attention is paid to coin, notes, circulation, public and private credit, and exchange.

    £150

  16. RICARDO, David.

    Zasady ekonomji politycznej i podatkowania.

    Warsaw, Jan Cotty, 1919.

    Second and most complete Polish edition of On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (first published in 1817), in a new translation by Dr. M. Bronstein. The 1826 first Polish translation by Stanislaw Kunatt was based on the translation into French by the Portuguese journalist Francisco Solano...

    £150

  17. [RICARDO, David.]

    Report from the select committee on the usury laws.

    London, ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 28 May 1818.

    First edition of the report from the select committee ‘appointed to consider the effects of the laws which regulate or restrain the interest of money, and to report their opinion thereupon to the House’ (p. 3). The question of the Usury Laws had first been raised in the House of Commons by Brougham...

    £200

  18. RICHARDSON, Ralph.

    Coutts & Co. Bankers Edinburgh and London, being the memoirs of a family distinguished for its public services...

    London, Elliott Stock, 1901

    Second edition, revised and enlarged, narrating the instrumental role of the Coutts family in establishing a magnificent system of banking in Scotland.

    £40

  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. [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