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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[SEX-WORK.]
Arrêtés des 3 et 4 Juin 1833, concernant les femmes et filles livrées à la prostitution publique.
Toulon, ‘de l’imprimerie d’Aug. Aurel’, 1833.
An apparently unrecorded set of decrees intended to regulate sex-work in the French port of Toulon on the Mediterranean coast, ‘for the maintenance of good morals and public health’.
£475
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SISMONDI, J. C. L. Simonde de.
Nouveaux principes d’économie politique, ou de la richesse dans ses rapports avec la population...
Paris, Delaunay, Treuttel & Wurtz, 1819.
First edition. ‘A number of concepts and theories that later became important in the history of economics first appeared in the writings of the Swiss economist J. C. L. Simonde de Sismondi … Sismondi developed the first aggregate equilibrium income theory and the first algebraic growth model....
£850
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SMITH, William.
The Speeches of Mr. Smith, of South Carolina, delivered in the House of Representatives of the United States, in...
Philadelphia printed, London reprinted for John Stockdale, 1794.
First London edition, a rebuff to the punitive anti-British tariffs proposed by the future President James Madison, first printed in Philadelphia in the same year and also reprinted in Edinburgh.
£175
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SMITH, William.
An authentic account of the life and memoirs of Mr. William Smith, an unfortunate convict, executed at Tyburn,...
London, for J. Jefferies, 1750.
The last account of William Smith, son of an Irish vicar, containing the story of how he came to be executed for forgery, in addition to odes written by Smith shortly before his execution.
£40
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SSYL’NYM I ZAKLIUCHENNYM.
St. Petersburg, [Vol’naia Tipografiia for “Shipovnik”], 1907.
Rare first edition of this anthology of stories, novellas and poems by Russian authors; a publication intended to raise funds in support of the exiled and imprisoned (as the title translates), the victims of the Tsarist reaction after the 1905 revolution. Among the mainly socially oriented and neo-realistic...
£350
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STATUTA COLLEGII DD.
Almae Urbis Medicorum ex antiquis Romanorum Pontificum bullis congesta, & hactenùs per Sedem Apostolicam...
Rome, Printer of the Apostolic Chamber, 1676 [– c.1745].
The very rare enlarged and updated issue of the statutes of the medical faculty of Rome, a very rare and interesting document on its internal organization.
£550
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STAUNFORD [Stanford], William, Sir.
Les Plees del Coron, Divisees in Plusors Titles & Comon Lieux. Per Queux Home Pluis Redement...
[London], Richard Tottell, 1583.
The definitive edition, and that owned by Thomas Jefferson, of the first book devoted entirely to criminal law. First published posthumously in 1557 and based on Bracton and the Year Books, Les Plees deals in turn with offences, jurisdiction, appeals, indictments and defences. The third...
£3000
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STEPNIAK, Sergey.
דאָס אינטערערדישע רוסלאַנד … איבערזעצט פון א. פרומקין
[Dos...New York, Maks N. Maisel, 1921.
Scarce first American edition in Yiddish of Stepniak’s first and most influential book. Written in Italian during exile in Switzerland following his assassination of Nikolai Mezentsov, chief of Alexander II’s secret police, Underground Russia was published in 1882 and translated into...
£150
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STEPNIAK, Sergius [pseudonym for: Sergius Mikhailovich Kravchinskii].
Podziemna Rosja. Obrazki z przeszłości młodej Rosji.
Lviv, [ printers of the Dziennika Polskiego] for Gubrinowicz & Schmidt, 1897.
Extremely rare first edition in Polish, anonymously translated and printed in nowadays Ukraine, of Stepniak’s most successful, translated and influential book.
£100
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[STRASBOURG.]
Souscription patriotique de la part du beau-sexe de Strasbourg.
[S.l., s.n., 1789?.]
Rare first edition of this entertaining satirical piece on women's clothing, published in the aftermath of the French Revolution. After complaining that the recent craze for ‘gauze, muslin, linen and feathers’ had brought the country to its knees, the text describes how the patriotic women...
£165
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STUART, Gilbert.
Observations concerning the Public Law, and the constitutional History of Scotland: with occasional Remarks concerning...
Edinburgh, Printed for William Creech; and J. Murray, London, 1779.
First edition. At the time of the publication of these Observations, Gilbert Stuart (1742–1786), a prolific reviewer, sometime reader for John Murray, co-founder of the short-lived Edinburgh Magazine, and author of various historical works, was a candidate for the professorship of public law in the...
£200
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[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
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SWEEZY, Paul Malor.
The theory of capitalist development. Principles of Marxian political economy.
London, Dennis Dobson, 1946
First British edition (first issued in 1942), of Sweezy’s ‘seminal work’ (The New Palgrave). Based on lectures which he gave at Harvard on the economics of socialism, this work is a ‘comprehensive review of Marxian economics up until the time of World War II’ and ‘did much to determine the...
£40
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ŚWIATŁO.
Czasopismo popularno-naukowe. Organ Polskiej Partyi Socyalistycznej. Rok pierwszy [- drugi].
London, Printers of the Federation of Polish Socialists Abroad for the Polish Socialist Party [– Printers of the Polish Socialist Party],...
The first two complete years (eight consecutive issues) of the very rare quarterly magazine of the PPS, the largest Socialist Party of Poland, lead by Piłsudski. Altogether 19 issues appeared up to 1904. The annual titles, which are apparently not always present were designed by Teofil Terlecki...
£200
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TAYLOR, Alfred Swaine.
On the Processes for detecting Blood in medico-legal Cases.
[London, Guy’s Hospital Reports, 1870.]
Taylor’s own offprint of this interesting article on detecting blood ‘for the purposes of pathology and legal medicine’, in which he publishes, for the first time, a description of the spectroscopic process developed by the eminent microscopist and geologist Henry Clifton Sorby (1826–1908),...
£350
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THANET, Octave, pseudonym of Alice FRENCH, author, and A. B. ZHUROMSKAIA, translator.
Стачка [Stachka (literally ‘General...
Saratov, Knigoizdatel’stvo “Nov’” P. S. Feokritov, 1905.
Apparently first and only Russian edition.
£200
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[THOMPSON, Thomas].
The genuine tryal of Dr. Nosmoth, a physician in Pekin; for the murder of the Mandarine Tonwin … Taken in...
London, for Mary Cooper, 1746.
First edition, a satire, putting Dr. Nosmoth, aka Thomas Thompson, on trial for causing the death of ‘Mandarine Tonwin’, aka Thomas Winnington, the Paymaster of the Forces. The somewhat shady circumstances surrounding the death soon attracted the attentions of Society gossip, including being discussed...
£175
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[THORNTON, Robert John].
The Politician’s Creed. Being the Great Outline of Political Science. From the Writings of Montesquieu,...
London, printed for T. Cox, and sold by Johnson, Robinsons, Owen, and Manson, 1795-6.
First editions of The Politician’s Creed, by the physician and writer on botany Robert John Thornton (1767-1837). Written as a fundraiser for war widows and orphans, this comprehensive work examines politics as a science, different forms of government and popular responses to them, corruption, the...
£200
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TOMPSON, John, editor.
English Miscellanies consisting of various Pieces of Divinity, Morals, Politicks, Philosophy and History;...
Gottingen by Abram. Vandenhoeck, Printer and Bookseller to the University 1746.
Second edition, revised, of John Tompson’s important English Miscellanies, expanded to almost twice the size of the first edition, including up-to-date content published since 1737.
£300
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[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. 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). Toynbee was convinced that George’s work was too one-sided and sought to mitigate its influence on the...
£50