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. ‘RUFIANDER, Fabius Jocosus’ [pseud. Friedrich Julius ROTTMANN]. 

    Curiöse Inaugural Disputation von dem Recht / Natur...

    ‘Teutschland, Gedruckt in denen Hundes-Tagen, 1716.’ 

    First edition, very rare, of this satirical academic disputation on melancholy, dedicated to the author’s ‘unpleasant and universally despised’ peers in the hope of cheering them up (p. [4] trans.). 

    £675

  2. SELKIRK, Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of.

    Observations on the present state of the Highlands of Scotland, with a view of the causes...

    London, Longman et al., 1805.

    First edition. ‘In 1792 … Selkirk [1771–1820] undertook an extensive tour through the Scottish Highlands and became convinced that emigration thence was unavoidable. He also recognised the need of some controlling hand to direct it. He first conceived the idea of a settlement at the Red River (what...

    £425

  3. [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

  4. STACEY, George et al.

    Daguerreotype and ambrotype portraits of Stacey and members of his family.

    London, 1850s.

    A handsome set of photographs of the English Quaker and abolitionist George Stacey (1787-1857), his second wife Mary née Barclay (1797-1876) and members of their extended family, taken by some of the finest portraitists in England at that time.

    £7500

  5. 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

  6. STEUART, Walter (of Pardovan?).

    ‘The ABC with the Shorter Catechisme appointed by the general Assembly to be a Directory for...

    Edinburgh. Written by Walter Stewart. 1714[–15].

    A very attractive calligraphic manuscript catechism, largely reproducing the very rare edition printed in Edinburgh in 1696 (NLS and Bodley only in ESTC). It was apparently produced in November–December 1714, and the imitation of both blackletter and roman type is consistently excellent throughout....

    £2500

  7. SWIFT, Jonathan. 

    A Tale of a Tub … to which is added, an Account of a Battle between the antient and modern Books in St. James’s...

    London, C. Bathurst, 1751. 

    A scarce later edition of Swift’s classic satires on corruption in religion and learning, as exemplified in the conduct of Peter (Roman Catholicism), Martin (Luther), and Jack (Calvin) in the Tale of the Tub, and the spirited fight over the highest peak of Parnassus in the Battel of...

    £175

  8. [SYPHILIS.]

    Della tabe dorsale ovvero della cura della consunzione negli uomini e nelle donne con la spiegazione de’ sintomi,...

    Venice, Graziosi, 1785.

    First Italian translation, uncommon, of Tabes dorsalis: or, the cause of consumption in young men and women, by ‘a Physician of Bristol’.

    £135

  9. 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

  10. TOCQUEVILLE, Alexis de, and Gustave de BEAUMONT.

    Du système pénitentiaire aux États-Unis, et de son application en France, suivi...

    Paris, H. Fournier jeune, 1833.

    First edition of de Tocqueville’s forerunner to Democracy in America. A detailed report on the innovative penitentiary system in the young United States, Du système pénitentiaire was published by Tocqueville and Beaumont after their observational tour of North America at the behest of the July Monarchy....

    £650

  11. [TODESCHI, Claudio.]

    Lettere filosofiche dirette alla nobil donna la signora baronessa Laura Astalli Piccolomini sotto il nome di Clori.

    Rome, Giovanni Zempel, 1783.

    Extremely rare first edition of these four verse letters by Claudio Todeschi (b. 1737) addressed to baroness Laura Astalli Piccolomini, his fellow member of the Accademia degli Arcadi. Known as 'Clori', Laura was a soprano and one of the last surviving members of the noble Roman family the Astallis;...

    £475

  12. VAN DER LINDEN, Jan. 

    Heerlyke en gelukkige reys naer het heylig land en stad van Jerusalem ... in ‘t jaer onzes heeren 1633...

    Antwerp, H. Verdussen, [approbation dated 1645, but c. 1790]. 

    Rare edition of this popular schoolbook, comprising the account of Jan van der Linden’s journey to Jerusalem in 1633, partly printed in civilité type. 

    £375

  13. [VENEREAL DISEASE.] 

    A collection of theses on syphilis and gonorrhea. 

    Paris, 1829-1860. 

    An interesting collection of fifteen scarce theses presented for the degree of Doctor of Medicine at the Faculty of Medecine in Paris, between 1829 and 1860, on the subject of syphilis, gonorrhea, and other sexually transmitted infections. 

    £550

  14. [VIRGIL.]  RAMUS, Petrus (Pierre de la RAMÉE). 

    ...

    Paris, André Wechel, 1564. 

    Second editions of Ramus’s extensive commentaries on Virgil’s two poems on country life, written in reaction to the dry doctrines of several French schools who based their teaching of nature on Aristotle’s Physics.  Ramus wanted to keep in contact with the concrete realities of nature...

    £950

  15. 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

  16. [WALLOON CHURCH AMSTERDAM.] 

    Ordres et reglemens de la maison des orphelins, des vieillards, et des vielles femmes de l’eglise...

    Amsterdam, David Pierre Humbert, 1772.

    Very rare set of regulations governing the charitable house for orphans and the elderly founded by the Walloon Church in Amsterdam in 1631, with manuscript additions updating the lists of its male and female governors up to 1795.

    £1450

  17. [WARD, Edward, and VOLTAIRE.] 

    The Humourous and Diverting Story of Two Sailors, Who, in order to recruit their Stock of...

    6, Punderson’s-Place, Bethnal-Green-Road’, [c. 1800?]. 

    Seemingly unrecorded edition of this humorous chapbook tale of two penniless sailors who turn to piracy in an attempt to pay their rent, printed with a translation of Voltaire’s Memnon and the anonymous poem ‘Clara’. 

    £450

  18. WELLS, Edward.

    The young Gentleman’s Astronomy, Chronology, and Dialling, containing such Elements of the said Arts or Sciences,...

    London, James & John Knapton, 1725.

    Third edition of Wells’s successful mathematical handbook.

    £350

  19. [WESLEY, John (editor).]

    Excerpta ex Ovidio, Virgilio, Horatio, Juvenali, Persio, et Martiali: in usum juventutis Christianae....

    Bristol, typis F. Farley, 1749.

    First edition of one of the textbooks that Wesley compiled for the school that he founded at Kingswood, Bristol, in 1748. Finding contemporary textbooks inadequate, he published an astonishing number of works for his pupils – grammars, editions of classics, and other introductions to learning....

    £1100

  20. WEYLAND, John.

    Observations on Mr. Whitbread’s Poor Bill, and on the Population of England: intended as a supplement to A Short...

    London, J. Hatchard, 1807.

    First edition of each work. The barrister John Weyland (1774–1854) ‘was a well-to-do man whose landed possessions were extensive enough for him to be a magistrate in three counties, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Surrey’ (James, p. 372). In 1807, he wrote two works supporting the poor laws, entitled...

    £2800