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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[LE MERCIER DE LA RIVIÈRE, Pierre Paul].
Die glückliche Nation, oder der Staat von Felizien. Ein Muster der vollkommensten Freyheit...
Leipzig, Voss, 1794.
Very rare first German edition of Le Mercier de la Rivière’s physiocratic utopia L’heureuse nation, ou Relation du gouvernement des Féliciens, which had first appeared in French in 1792.
£1250
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LE PLAY, Frédéric.
Les ouvriers européens. Tome premier [-6me].
Tours, Alfred Mame et Fils, 1879.
Second, greatly enlarged edition. This groundbreaking, comprehensive work of sociology, which examines the working condition, domestic life and psychological aspects of European workers, had appeared in its first form in 1855 a single volume. ‘Since public opinion was not yet ready to accept...
£750
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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.
£8000
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[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
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LOWER RATES.
No. 7. Bankers cause War.
London, United ratepayers’ advisory association [1930s].
First and only edition. An authentic copy of the Fascist-sponsored newspaper ‘Lower Rates’, a rare survival from the heyday of Oswald Mosley. Under the headline ‘Bankers cause War’ we see bankers accused of creating all the problems of society, including war-mongering and creating artificial credit.
£130
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[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
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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
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[MALTHUS, Thomas Robert].
Art. I - Essay on Political Economy. Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Vol. VI. Part I. Edinburgh....
The Quarterly Review Vol. XXX No. LX, January 1824, pp. 298-334.
First edition. A review by Thomas Malthus of John Ramsay McCulloch’s famous essay on political economy.
£100
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MALTHUS, Thomas Robert.
An Essay on the Principle of Population; or, a View of its past and present Effects on human Happiness;...
London, Johnson, 1803.
Second edition, first published 1798. Called the ‘Great Quarto’, it is the first to bear Malthus’s name and is so revised by Malthus as to be ‘regarded by [him] as a substantially new work’ (ODNB).
£5750
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MALTHUS, T. R.
Principles of political Economy considered with a View to their practical Application.
London, John Murray, 1820.
First edition of Malthus’s broadest treatment of issues in political economy, an attractive copy from the library of the economist and industrialist Robert Hyde Greg, a critic of Malthus’s.
£5000
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MALTHUS, T. R.
An Essay on the Principle of Population; or, a View of its past and present Effects on human Happiness; with an...
London, John Murray, 1817.
Fifth edition, ‘with important additions’, of one of the most influential works in the history of economic thought, a handsome copy owned and possibly annotated by the economist and industrialist Robert Hyde Greg, a critic of Malthus’s.
£2200
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MANDEVILLE, Bernard.
The Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices, public Benefits. Edited and with an Introduction by Douglas Garman.
London, Wishart and Co., 1934.
First edition thus. Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees was first published as a poem in 1705, entitled The Grumbling Hive, or Knaves Turned Honest, which is printed in this edition as first text, and later expanded into a prose work entitled The Fable of the Bees; or, Private Vices,...
£190
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MARZAGLIA, Gaetano.
Fascetto di pratiche matematiche spiegate alle persone popolari per uso del comercio umano, e civile, in questa...
Verona, Dionisio Ramanzini, 1780.
A lovely copy of the second edition, considerably augmented from the first of 1754, of this book of applied mathematical problems by the Veronese mathematician Gaetano Marzaglia (or Marcegaglia, 1716–1787), heavily influenced by the work of Wolff, who provides the motto to the book, and whose works...
£650
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MCCULLOCH, John Ramsay.
Principes d’économie politique suivis de quelques recherches relatives à leur application et d’un...
Paris, Guillaumin et Cie, 1851.
First and only complete French translation, an association copy signed by the translator for the historian and member of the Académie française Pierre-François Tissot, and afterwards in the library of the economist and statist Michel Chevalier, who like Tissot held a chair at the Collège de France.
£300
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McCULLOCH, John Ramsay, and Augustin PLANCHE (translator).
Principes d’économie politique, suivis de quelques recherches relatives...
Paris, A. Moussin for Guillaumin et Cie, 1863.
French translation of McCulloch’s Principles. First published in 1825, the book provided the first synthetic modern definition of political economy and quickly established itself as one of the most referenced manuals on the subject. ‘For McCulloch was reserved the honour of presenting in a popular...
£200
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MEADE, James Edward (1907-1995), economist.
Autograph manuscript page and accompanying black and white passport photograph.
[c. 1977].
A leaf of autograph manuscript, presumably sent at the request of a collector, giving part of the text of Meade’s Nobel Memorial Lecture, ‘The meaning of “internal balance”’, which he delivered in December 1977. Meade writes: ‘To treat the whole of macro-economic control as a single subject...
£150
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MEGUSCHER, Francesco.
Memoria … in risposta al quesito additare la migliore e più facile maniera per rimittere i boschi nelle...
Milan, presso l’I.R. Istituto, 1847.
Uncommon first edition of this comprehensive report on the best means of reversing the deforestation of the mountains of Lombardy in a way that would be both environmentally sustainable and economically profitable.
£950
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MENDONÇA, Manoel Teixeira Cabral de.
O Guarda-livros moderno ou curso completo de instrucções elementares sobre as operações...
Lisbon, Impressão Regia, 1823.
Second edition, corrected and expanded, of vol. I, first editions of vol. II and the Supplemento. The first volume provides a broad overview of the history of commercial exchange, including present practices. Mendonça states that his intention is to demonstrate the benefits of studying geography, insurance,...
£300
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[MILDMAY, William, Sir.]
The Laws and Policy of England, relating to Trade, examined by the Maxims and Principles of Trade...
London, printed and sold by T. Harrison … and by J. Robson … 1765.
First edition, an unjustly neglected study of the politics and economics of international trade, inspired in part by comparison with France, where Mildmay spent five years in the 1750s.
£350
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MILLAR, John.
Observations concerning the Distinction of Ranks in Society. Under the following Heads: I. Of the Ranks and Condition...
London, J. Murray, 1773.
Second London edition, ‘greatly enlarged’, first published 1771.
£1750