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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PIECK, Henri C.
10 Dagen Die De Wereld Deden Wankelen.
Amsterdam, Skovino, 1927.
A rare lithograph of Pieck’s dramatic illustration for Ten Days that Shook the World (October in English), a silent film commissioned by the Soviet government to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the October Revolution. Made by the director of Battleship Potemkin (1925), Sergei Eisenstein, the...
£300
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ALBERTI, Rafael.
13 Bandas y 48 estrellas. Poema del Mar Caribe.
Madrid, Manuel Altolaguirre, 1936.
First edition. ‘The thirteen poems collected in 13 bandas y 48 estrellas, first published in 1936 and later recollected in part 3 of De un momento a otro, are songs of protest against, and critical evaluations of, the role of “el imperialismo yanki”, “la diplomacia del horror”, and “la...
£650
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KRUG, Leopold.
Abriss der Staatsökonomie oder Staatswirthschaftslehre ...
Berlin, Realschulbuchhandlung, 1808.
Rare first edition. Krug was a civil servant whose writings on political economy and statistics had to be carved out of ‘the odd spare hour’. From 1805 to 1834 he was heavily involved in the development and expansion of the Prussian Statistical Bureau, during which time he conducted numerous statistical...
£250
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[TRADE AND EXCISE].
An Additional Act for the better improvement and advancing the receipts of the Excise and New-Impost. At the...
London, Henry Hills and Iohn Field, Printers to His Highness, 1657.
First edition. The most substantial part of the Act, entitled ‘A Book of Values of Merchandize imported, according to which, excize is to be paid by the first buyer’, includes a forty-page alphabetical list of imported commodities, each recorded with the respective payable duty.
£250
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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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LEWIS, Wyndham.
America and Cosmic Man.
London and Brussels, Nicholas and Watson Ltd., [1948].
First edition, second state binding as always (the first, in green cloth, was rejected by Lewis as ‘hideous’ and was used on only 3 trial copies). In hand by 1943, not finished until 1946 and then rejected by American publishers until it finally found a British home in 1948, America and Cosmic Man...
£200
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PETTY, William, Sir.
Another Essay in Political Arithmetick, concerning the growth of the City of London: with the measures,...
London, printed by H.H. for Mark Pardoe, 1683.
First edition, scarce – seemingly unique in its uncut and unbound state – of Petty’s first work of political arithmetic, a landmark work of statistics, demography, and economics.
£12000
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[PRADT, Dominique Georges Frédéric de Riom de Prolhiac du Four de].
Antidote au Congrès de Rastadt, ou Plan d’un nouvel équilibre...
London [i.e. Hamburg], 1798.
First edition of the Abbé de Pradt’s first and most famous work. The entries for the present work in Barbier, Quérard and NUC (which gives a different pagination) all include ‘par l’auteur des “Considérations sur la France”’ in their transcription of the title-page. Our copy is completely...
£250
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[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
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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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PALMERSTON, Henry John Temple, Viscount.
Autograph document signed, approving a plan for a ‘Prison for Boys’ at Durham...
Whitehall, 2 February 1853.
A document signed by Lord Palmerston as Home Secretary. He signifies his approval of ‘the annexed plan [no longer present] of a Prison for Boys, on the upper floor of the South Wing of the Gaol for the County of Durham’.
£400
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DISRAELI, Benjamin.
Autograph envelope signed.
[Probably London, c. 1874–1880.]
An envelope probably dating from Disraeli’s second premiership (1874–1880). Lady Emily Peel (1836–1924) was the seventh daughter of the eighth marquess of Tweeddale. Lady Emily Hay, as she then was, married the politician Sir Robert Peel, third baronet, on 13 January 1856, but she left her husband...
£100
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LIEBER, Francis.
Autograph letter in French, signed ‘François Lieber’, to Joseph Bonaparte, comte de Survilliers, Napoleon’s...
Columbia, South Carolina, 9 May 1836.
The German-American political scientist Francis Lieber (1800–1872) was a prolific theorist of political ethics and jurisprudence. He emigrated to Boston in 1827, where he impressed John Quincy Adams, and became Tocqueville’s principal informant for Democracy in America (1835–40). In 1835 he was...
£425
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SCHUMACHER, H., Professor.
Autograph letter signed (‘H. Schumacher’) to a colleague.
Bonn, den Coblenzerstrasse 83, 10 February 1915.
Schumacher’s spirited response to a colleague who had asked for Schumacher’s opinion on a letter he intended to publish in an American newspaper. Schumacher charges him with completely misunderstanding both the political situation and public opinion in the USA. He criticises the German attitude towards...
£150
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LIEBIG, Justus von.
Autograph letter, signed, to an unnamed English nobleman.
Munich, 10 December 1857.
A fine letter from Justus von Liebig to an unnamed English nobleman.
£1250
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BEAUMONT, Gustave-Auguste de la Bonninière de.
Autograph letter signed (‘Gustave de Beaumont’) to Sarah Austin.
Birmingham, 27 June [1835].
A warm and personal autograph documenting the relationship between Beaumont (1802–1866), prison reformer and travel companion to Alexis de Tocqueville, and one of the most accomplished contemporary catalysts of philosophical exchange, the translator Sarah Austin.
£350
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HARLINGUE, L. [Albert].
'Baktiaris Persans'.
[Iran, c. 1905-1911].
An impressive press image of the Bakhtiari tribe – revolutionaries in the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1911 – here posing in strength with their weapons. Their leader, Sardar As’ad Bakhtiari (1856-1917), was a key figure in the Iranian revolution; under his command (and with German...
£1500
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[GOLD and SILVER.]
Bando generale per gli orefici, argentieri, ed altri che comprano, vendono, ed in qualsivoglia modo...
Rome, ‘nella stamperia della Rev. Camera Apostolica’, 1815.
Rare edict governing goldsmiths, silversmiths, and traders in gold and silver operating in Rome and the Papal States, issued by Cardinal Bartolomeo Pacca (1756–1844) in January 1815 as Camerlengo to Pope Pius VII.
£475
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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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[BRISTOL.]
The Bristol Contest, being a Collection of all the Papers published by both Parties, on the Election, 1754.
Bristol, ‘sold by the Printing-Office … and by J. Palmer’, [1754].
Extremely rare first edition of this Bristol-printed political pamphlet, bound with the first edition of a French work on pyrotechnics used both for spectacle and for war.
£650