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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. ANTONIUS de Vercellis. 

    Sermones quadragesimales de XII mirabilibus...

    Venice, Johannes and Gregorius de Gregoriis,...

    A remarkable copy of the first edition...

    £8500

  2. [ARISTOTLE.] 

    Disputations on Aristotle’s Organon. 

    Milan, 1600-1601. 

    An interesting manuscript comprising...

    £1250

  3. [ARISTOTLE – ELIAS.]

    Biblioteca Armeno-Georgica. I. Commentarii...

    St Petersburg, Academiae Imperialis Scientarum,...

    Uncommon edition, published by the Imperial...

    £250

  4. Aristotle: From Antiquity to the Modern Era.

    Preface by Martin J. Gross. Essays by Benjamin...

    Lewes, D. Giles Ltd for the Martin J....

    Aristotle’s influence towers over western...

    £30

  5. AUGUSTINUS TRIUMPHUS [i.e. AUGUSTINUS de Ancona]. 

    Summa de potestate ecclesiastica. 

    Augsburg, [Johann Schüssler,] 6 March 1473. 

    First edition of this highly important...

    £30000

  6. BACON, Francis.

    Opuscula varia posthuma, philosophica,...

    London, R. Daniel, impensis Octaviani...

    First edition, second issue (with the...

    £1250

  7. BACON, Francis. 

    Francisci Baconi, Baronis de Verulamio,...

    London, Edward Griffin [and John Haviland]...

    First edition, first issue, a copy from...

    £3500

  8. [BALDELLI, Giovanni Battista].

    Elogio di Niccolo’ Machiavelli.

    Londra, 1794. 

    Uncommon first edition of this speech in...

    £325

  9. [BARSANTI, Pier Vincenzo.]

    Della futura rinnovazione de’ cieli e...

    [Florence,] Stamperia Bonducciana, 1780.

    First edition of this utopia by the...

    £685

  10. BEAUMONT, Gustave-Auguste de la Bonninière de.

    Autograph letter signed (‘Gustave de...

    Birmingham, 27 June [1835].

    A warm and personal autograph documenting...

    £350

  11. [BENDISCIOLI, Faustino.]

    Quadro ossia saggio epilogato del Sistema...

    Milan, Stamperia [dei Patrioti d’Italia]...

    An impassioned tract attacking the claims...

    £200

  12. [BERINGTON, Simon, adapted by Jean-Baptiste DUPUY-DEMPORTES.] 

    Memoires de Gaudence de Luques, prisonnier...

    Amsterdam and Leipzig, Arkstée & Merkus,...

    Second edition of this much expanded...

    £500

  13. BERKELEY, George.

    St Petersburg, O. N. Popov, 1905.

    First Russian edition of George Berkeley’s...

    £1750

  14. BERLIN Isiah.

    The Naiveté of Verdi.

    [New York, The Hudson Review, 1968].

    First edition. Presentations by Berlin...

    £750

  15. [BOLINGBROKE, Henry St John, Viscount].

    Letters, on the Spirit of Patriotism: on...

    London: Printed for A. Millar … 1749.

    First authorised edition. Written in 1738...

    £375

  16. BONET, Nicolas.

    Habes Nicholai Bonetti viri p[er]spicacissimi...

    Venice, Boneto Locatello for the heirs...

    First collected edition of the works...

    £4000

  17. BRADLAUGH, Charles.

    Catalogue of the library of the late Charles...

    London, Mrs H. Bradlaugh Bonner, 1891.

    Only edition of this private production,...

    £500

  18. BROUGHAM, Lord Henry.

    Lives of men of letters and science who...

    London, Charles Knight and Co., 1845-47.

    First edition of the first volume (1845),...

    £250

  19. BUQUOY, Georg Franz August de Longueval, Freiherr von Vaux, Graf von.

    Anregungen für philosophisch-wissenschaftliche...

    Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, 1825.

    First edition, rare, of a comprehensive...

    £950

  20. BURLAMAQUI, Jean Jacques.

    Principes du droit naturel.

    Geneva, Barrillot & fils, 1747.

    First edition of the first work, bound...

    £2500