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. [ABC.]

    Alphabet mythologique.

    [Paris], lith. Durand, Ligny Jne. et Cie, [1840s?].

    A delightful and extremely rare ABC depicting figures from Greek and Roman mythology, alongside the Hindu river goddess Yamuna for the letter Y.

    £2500

  2. ANTOINE, Antoine. 

    L’esprit des enfans, ou naïvetés, saillies piquantes, réparties ingénieuses, espiégleries, traits de...

    Paris, Alexis Eymery, 1813. 

    Scarce and charming collection of amusing and edifying anecdotes relating to the childhoods of those who would later become famous, alongside more general youthful yarns, compiled by the Parisian writer Antoine (1776–1836), who specialised in works for children. 

    £450

  3. [AQUHORTIES College.]

    Abstract of the Rules and Regulations for the Students in the College of Aquhorties …

    [At foot:] Edinburgh: Printed by J. Moir, Paterson’s Court. [1799?].

    Broadside rules for the newly established Aquhorties College, the only Roman Catholic college in Scotland, presumably designed to be posted up around the school.

    £850

  4. [ARISTOTLE.] 

    Disputations on Aristotle’s Organon

    Milan, 1600-1601. 

    An interesting manuscript comprising disputations on the first four works of Aristotle’s Organon, covering logical analysis and dialectic, compiled by a Milanese student at the turn of the seventeenth century. 

    £1250

  5. [AYALA Y AGUILAR, José de.]

    Examen del derecho de vida y muerte, egercido por los gobiernos. Escrito por un cubano.

    Barcelona, Estivill, 1838.

    First edition of a Cuban treatise of criminal law, a forceful impugnation of capital punishment which invokes arguments and schemes from, among others, Filangieri, Montesquieu, Beccaria, Rousseau, Bentham. The tract moves to a wider juridical consideration of the relationship between individuals and...

    £550

  6. BALFOUR, Arthur James, first Earl of Balfour.

    Letter, signed, to ‘Sir John’.

    London, 10 Downing Street, 28 June 1901.

    A letter from Arthur Balfour, as first lord of the Treasury, concerning what would become perhaps his greatest achievement, the Education Act of 1902.

    £300

  7. BALLOU, Adin.

    Practical Christian socialism: a conversational exposition of the true system of human society; in three parts, viz:...

    Hopedale and New York, by the author and Fowlers and Wells, 1854.

    First edition. Adin Ballou (1803-90), Universalist clergyman and leading American Christian social reformer, founded the utopian Hopedale Community in 1841, during the heyday of such communal experiments. He surrendered his presidency of Hopedale in 1852 in order to devote himself to expanding his movement...

    £650

  8. BARRINGTON, George.

    A Voyage to Botany Bay with a Description of the Country, Manners, Customs, Religion, &c. of the Natives by...

    London, C. Lowndes for H.D. Symonds, [c. 1800-1802, A1 watermarked ‘1800’].

    First and only combined edition, second issue. George Barrington was a ‘genteel young Irishman known for his sartorial elegance, his command of the etiquette of romantic sensibility, and for his prowess at picking pockets’ (Garvey p. 2). The fascinating contrast between Barrington’s charming...

    £875

  9. BEARCROFT, Philip.

    An historical Account of Thomas Sutton Esq; and of his Foundation in Charter-House …

    London: Printed by E. Owen, and sold by F. Gyles … W. Hinchliffe … J. and P. Knapton … J. Stagg … and S. Birt … 1737.

    First edition. Thomas Sutton (1532-1611) was an Elizabethan civil servant who made an enormous fortune from leases of land rich in coal in Durham. In 1611 he bought Howard House for £13,000 from the Earl of Suffolk; the building acquired its more familiar name, ‘Charterhouse’, after the order of...

    £250

  10. 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

  11. [BEER.]

    Jenaischer allgemeiner Bier-Comment nebst angehängtem Bier-Prozess.

    ‘Eschwig, Otter & Kunitz, 183*.’

    An apparently unrecorded humorous handbook of drinking rules for students at the university of Jena, famous both as a centre of German idealism and Romanticism, and for its professors, who included Schiller, Fichte, Hegel, and Schlegel.

    £375

  12. [BICKERSTAFF, Isaac (attributed).] 

    The Life, strange Voyages, and uncommon Adventures, of Ambrose Gwinett, formerly known...

    London, printed for J. Barker, [c. 1785-94]. 

    Very rare edition of this enormously popular novella, a kind of ‘Campden Wonder’ narrative involving an illusory murder, survival after hanging, flight to Jamaica, reappearance of the abducted ‘victim’, and reabduction by pirates.  The attractive frontispiece depicts Gwinett surrounded...

    £850

  13. [BOOKBINDER.]

    Sentence rendue en la chambre criminelle du Châtelet de Paris, qui condamne Guillaume Maillet, maître relieur,...

    Paris, Jean-Charles Desaint, 1782.

    Scarce pamphlet documenting the misdemeanours of the Parisian master bookbinder Guillaume Maillet.

    £575

  14. BOOTH, Charles.

    In darkest England and the way out.

    London, Salvation Army, [1890.]

    First edition. ‘In 1890, the same year that Stanley published In Darkest Africa, Booth published In Darkest England. In this book he analysed the causes of pauperism and vice of the period, and proposed a remedy by ten expedients. These included land settlement, emigration, rescue work among prostitutes...

    £250

  15. BOSE, Johann Andreas.

    Introductio generalis in Notitiam Rerum publicarum Orbis Universi. Accedunt eiusdem Dissertationes de Statu...

    Jenae, J. Bielki, 1676.

    First edition of a pioneering work of statistics and rare Americanum, by the philosopher and historian Johann Andreas Bose (1624–1674). Bose’s crucial intuition as a student of human societies lies in his advocacy of interdisciplinary investigations. His work ‘on all the states in the world’...

    £3000

  16. BUCKNILL, Charles.

    Notes from medical lectures.

    London, February – April 1798.

    A most interesting medical manuscript by one Charles Bucknill recording lectures given in 1798 by the Scottish anatomist Matthew Baillie (1761–1823) and the English obstetrician John Clarke (1758–1815). Bucknill – likely a forebear of the psychiatrist and mental health reformer Sir John...

    £4500

  17. [CAMPOMANES, Pedro Rodriguez, Conde de].

    Discurso sobre el Fomento de la Industria popular. De orden de S. M. [Carlos III] y del...

    Madrid, D. Antonio de Sancha, 1774.

    First edition; preceding the complementary Discurso sobre la educación popular de los artesanos y su fomenta (1775); Dutch and Italian editions appeared in 1780 and 1787. Campomanes (1723–1802) was, according to McCulloch, ‘one of the most intelligent and distinguished Spanish statesmen of [the...

    £400

  18. CAREY, Henry Charles.

    Principles of social science.

    Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott, 1858-1860.

    First edition, a very attractive copy, of Carey’s principal work. ‘His treatment of social science was original, and led him to a series of supposed discoveries, the order of which he has stated in the introduction of his most important work The Principles of Social Science. His point of departure...

    £1200

  19. CHERUBINI, Luigi.

    Autograph note signed ‘L. Cherubini’ regarding the cellist Auguste Franchomme.

    [Paris,] 19 December 1825.

    A short note in which the composer and director of the Conservatoire de Paris Luigi Cherubini records that ‘Mr. Franchomme’ has been admitted into the class of ‘Mr. Seuriot’ and that he will begin there on 22 December 1825.

    £350