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. STETSON, Charlotte Perkins [later GILMAN].

    Women and Economics: A Study of the economic Relation between Men and Women as...

    London and Boston, G. P. Putnam’s Sons and Small, Maynard & Company, 1900.

    Third edition, first published in 1898, of the best-known and most influential work of the prominent American feminist, sociologist, and novelist Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

    £95

  2. STOURM, Auguste-African, dit Eugène.

    Opinion sur la question des sucres.

    [Paris, Bourgogne & Martinet, n. d., but 1840.]

    First and only edition of this work on the sugar beet trade; the French had begun cultivating sugar beet during the Napoleonic wars, when the British blocked shipments of cane sugar from colonies such as Martinique and Guadeloupe.

    £100

  3. [SUEZ CANAL.]

    Vade-mecum des porteurs de Suez. Extrait du numéro du 4 mars 1882 du Courrier des Tirages financiers. Propriété...

    . Paris, [1882].

    Scarce pamphlet, signed ‘J. R.’, advising investors in the Suez Canal – referred to as ‘capitalistes intelligents’ – on the likely return on their investments over the coming 10 years.

    £50

  4. [SWEDIAUER, Franz Xavier].

    The Philosophical dictionary: or the opinions of modern philosophers on metaphysical, moral and political...

    London, for G.G.J. and J Robinson, 1786.

    First edition of this philosophical dictionary, featuring extracts from ‘the writings of the most eminent philosophers in Europe’ (preface) chosen by Swediaur, who originally compiled the collection as a sort of commonplace book for his private use. The broad-reaching content includes contributions...

    £200

  5. TATE, William.

    The modern cambist; forming a manual of foreign exchanges, in the direct, indirect, and cross operations of bills...

    London, Effingham Wilson, 1836.

    Third edition, corrected and expanded to reflect changes in the monetary systems of Portugal and Geneva, a new coinage introduced by the East India Company and the opening of trade with China. There is also a new appendix which discusses the mintage regulations for the coins of the United States, reflecting...

    £125

  6. TAYLOR, G. Oswald (photographer).

    Promotional photographic brochure celebrating the coronation of Elizabeth II.

    Nottingham, Fine Stocking Manufacturers Ltd., June 1953.

    An unusual coronation souvenir. The details on the lower wrapper indicate that Oswald Taylor produced the booklet, as well as photographed the series.

    £300

  7. THALER, Richard H.

    Misbehaving; The making of behavioral economics.

    New York, W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2015.

    First edition of a landmark work on behavioural economics by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Richard Thaler, professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

    £270

  8. TOOKE, Thomas.

    Thoughts and Details on the high and low Prices of the last thirty Years.

    London, John Murray, 1823.

    First edition of Tooke's first work, discussing the influence of climatic conditions and changing demand on agricultural prices. ‘During the three years which followed the Resumption Act of 1819 prices of nearly all commodities decreased, and the opinion that the fall in prices was the result of the...

    £750

  9. [TOYNBEE, Arnold.]

    “Progress and poverty,” a criticism of Mr. Henry George. Being two lectures delivered in St. Andrew’s...

    London, Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1883.

    First edition of the transcript of two lectures delivered in 1883 by the social reformer and political economist Arnold Toynbee (1852–1883) criticising Henry George’s Progress and Poverty (1879).

    £50

  10. TRAVERS, John.

    A Letter to the Editor of the Courier Newspaper, in Reply to an Article inserted in that Journal of the 22d August,...

    London, Effingham Wilson, 1834.

    Second, expanded edition of this tract on reforming the duties on tea imported from China to Britain, this copy presented to the Sinologist Sir George T. Staunton, member of the Select Committee on Tea Duties and author of the letter appended here, likely with his annotations and corrections; bound...

    £850

  11. TUCKER, Josiah.

    Betydande frågor om handelen, wid tilfålle af de motsäjelser, som skedde emot den sista billen, om utlänningars...

    [v. Oelreich], 1763.

    First Swedish edition, scarce, of this history on the treatment of foreign residents in Britain, Reflections on the Expediency of a Law for the Naturalization of Foreign Protestants (1751–1752). This book comprises only the main body of Part II (1752), ‘Important Queries occasioned by The Rejection...

    £200

  12. TUGAN-BARANOSKIĬ, M. I.

    Sovremennyĭ sotsializm v svoem istoricheskom razvitii.

    St. Petersburg, Buduschnost’, 1906.

    First edition of Tugan-Baranoskiĭ’s work on socialism; it was translated into English as Modern Socialism in its Historical Development by M. I. Redmount and published in 1910. After dismissal from his position at the University of St. Petersburg in 1899 for ‘political unreliability’, Tugan-Baranoskiĭ...

    £350

  13. TUGAN-BARANOVSKII, Mikhail Ivanovich.

    Teoreticheskiia osnovyi Marksizma.

    St Petersburg, I. N. Skorokhodov, 1905.

    First Russian edition of Theoretical Foundations of Marxism; a German edition, Theoretische Grundlagen der Marxismus, was published in the same year.

    £750

  14. TUGAN-BARANOVSKI, Mikhail Ivanovich.

    Obshchestvennoe ekonomicheskie idealyi nashego vremeni

    Saint Petersburg, Izdatelstvo ‘Vestniks Znaniya’ V.V. Bitner, 1913 .

    First and only edition of Socio-Economic Ideals in Our Time, seemingly never translated into English.

    £850

  15. UNITED STATES TARIFF COMMISSION.

    The Tariff. A Bibliography. A select list of references.

    Washington, U. S. Government Printing Office, 1934.

    First edition of a prodigiously comprehensive bibliography on tariffs, listing 6453 works in print relating to the rationale, theory, implementation, history, policies, administration, legislation, economic aspects, and controversies on tariffs. This extensive report was published in the year...

    £200

  16. VALERIANI MOLINARI, Luigi.

    Discorsi concernenti la pubblica economia il gius pubblico e l’antico gius romano.

    Bologna, Masi, 1809.

    First edition of Valeriani’s (1758–1828) rare work of political economy presented as a science which stands as an organic complement to a nation’s set of legislation.

    £750

  17. VANSITTART, Nicholas.

    Substance of two speeches [on the bullion question], made by the Right Hon. N. Vansittart, on the 7th and...

    London, J. Hatchard, 1811.

    First edition of this important contribution by Vansittart (1766-1851) to the so-called Bullionist Controversy, ‘the series of debates about monetary theory and policy which took place in Britain over the years 1797-1821, when the specie convertibility of Bank of England notes was suspended’, the...

    £500

  18. WALKER, Francis Amasa.

    Discussions in Economics and Statistics.

    New York, Henry Holt and Company, 1899.

    First edition of this collection edited by Professor Dewey of more than fifty articles by Francis Amasa Walker, some published here for the first time, classified under the heads of Statistics, National Growth, Social Economics, Finance and Taxation, Money and Bimetallism, and Economy Theory.

    £350

  19. WALRAS, Auguste.

    Théorie de la richesse sociale ou résumé des principes fondamentaux de l’économie politique.

    Paris, Guillaumin et C.ie, 1849.

    Three first editions, including the first appearance of the work which strongly influenced the work of French mathematical economist Léon Walras (1834–1910): his father Auguste’s Theory of Social Wealth.

    £1750

  20. WALRAS, Léon.

    Études d’économie sociale (Théorie de la Répartition de la Richesse sociale).

    Lausanne and Paris, Rouge and Pichon & Durand-Auzias, 1936.

    This, the second, definitive edition differs from the first (1896) in containing the ‘Souvenirs du Congrès de Lausanne’. The congress on taxation in Lausanne in 1860, at which Walras read a paper, was a climacteric in his career. In the audience was Louis Ruchonnet, who later became chief of the...

    £100