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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. [LUXATION.]

    Sammelband of twenty-six works on dislocation.

    France, Germany, Italy, 1803–1882.

    A collection of twenty-six rare works relating to luxations, all once in the library of the Société de Chirurgie of Paris, several presented by their authors, and very few present in UK or US libraries.

    £750

  2. MACAULEY, Auley.

    A Sermon on the peculiar Advantages of Sunday Schools: preached in the Parish Church of St. Paul, Bedford, on...

    London, Printed for C. Dilly … and sold by the Booksellers of Bedford, Northampton, and Leicester, for the Benefit of the Institution. [1792].

    First edition of a rare sermon to promote Sunday Schools by the uncle of Thomas Babington Macaulay and brother of the abolitionist Zachary Macaulay.

    £250

  3. MADDOX, Isaac.

    A Sermon preach’d in the Parish-Church of Christ-Church, London; on Thursday April the 30th, 1741 being the Time...

    London, M. Downing, 1741.

    First edition, containing the often-lacking second part of the work, providing a tabular account of the charity schools in and around London and Westminster in 1741.

    £650

  4. MALCOLM, Alexander.

    A Treatise of Musick, speculative, practical and historical. Containing an explication of the philosophical...

    London, J. Osborn and T. Longman, F. Fayram, and E. Symon, 1730.

    First London edition of the first history of music in English by a British author; it is a reissue of the Edinburgh-printed first edition of 1721 with a cancel title-page and the dedication removed.

    £1100

  5. MASTAI FERRETTI, Conte Paolino.

    Notizie storiche delle accademie d’Europa, con una relazione piu’ diffusa dell’accademia...

    Rome, I Lazzarini, 1792.

    Only edition, and a lovely copy, of this finely printed history of the academies of Europe, produced in honour of Pope Pius VI’s reestablishment of, and support for the Accademia nobile ecclesiastica (now the Pontifical Ecclesiastic Academy), which had been founded in 1701, was suppressed in 1764,...

    £850

  6. [MAUNDER, Samuel.]

    [Engraved title: The Little Linguist, being a compendious Introduction to English Philology] The miniature English...

    [(Engraved title:) London, Printed for the Author], [c. 1851?].

    A delightful and scarce miniature guide to English grammar, touching also on foreign languages and demographics, well-preserved in its bright publishers binding.

    £350

  7. [MEDICAL DICTIONARY.]

    Dictionary of medical terms, Latin-English wordlist, and list of abbreviations and contractions.

    [S.l., early 1800s].

    An interesting manuscript compiled by an anonymous medical student, comprising a dictionary of medical terms, from ‘Abdomen’ to ‘Zoster’, followed by a glossary of Latin terms with their English equivalents (including ‘Machina electrica – the electric machine’), and ending with a...

    £450

  8. MELCHIOR, Christian. 

    ‘Synechia sive summa lectionum Plutarchicarum a domino conrectore huius scholae Salderianae praelectarum. ...

    [Brandenburg an der Havel, 1620.] 

    An unpublished early seventeenth-century manuscript recording lectures on Plutarch’s pedagogical work On the Education of Children, bound with a scarce printed edition of the same text, and a rare edition of the poems of Theognis and other Greek lyric poets, each with numerous marginal and...

    £6500

  9. MILBANK, Augustus Sussex.

    A Treatise upon the political & social Condition of Europe, from the Fall of the Roman Empire, down to...

    [Richmond, M. Bell for] London, Messrs Hatchard & Son, and Richmond, M. Bell, 1847.

    First and only edition of a rare Yorkshire-printed treatise of social history by an amateur historian and educational enthusiast, inscribed by the author to the Countess of Sandwich.

    £125

  10. MILLAR, John.

    Observations concerning the distinction of ranks in society. Under the following heads: 1. Of the ranks and condition...

    London, Murray, 1773.

    Second London edition, ‘greatly enlarged’, first published 1771. The first section of Millar’s book is a study of matrilineal ‘savage’ societies, in which early social development counts most when it comes to kinship with the mother, is remarkably prescient (see Morgan, Systems)....

    £1450

  11. MILL, John Stuart, and Edward Livingston YOUMANS.

    Новѣйшее образованiе: его истинныя цѣли и требованiя....

    St Petersburg, Izdanie “Russkoi knizhnoi torgovli”, 1867.

    First edition in Russian of these two works, published in the original that same year.

    £100

  12. [MONS.]

    ...

    Mons, J. B. Varret, 1748.

    First and only edition, very rare, of this history of the Sunday school in Mons, established for the Christian education of the boys and girls of the city and supported by the Canonesses of St Waltrude among other benefactors.

    £975

  13. MONTE DI PIETÀ DI MILANO.

    Piano, e regole per il buon governo della congregazione de’ creditori della Regia Ducal Camera di...

    Milan, Giuseppe Richino Malatesta, [1753].

    An uncommon description of the workings of an eighteenth-century Italian charitable organisation, bound in a contemporary paste paper wrapper.

    £400

  14. MÜNSTER, Sebastian.

    [Melechet ha-Dikduk] מלאכת הדיקדוק Institutiones grammaticae in Hebraeam linguam FR Sebastiani...

    [Basel,] Johann Froben, 1524.

    First edition of Sebastian Münster’s (1488–1552) important Hebrew grammar for students, bound with the first Latin edition of his translation of Elia Levita’s Composita verborum, both critical to the Christian scholarly reception of Hebrew grammatical works and here enhanced by extensive...

    £7000

  15. [MURDER.]

    Arrest de la cour du Parlement, qui condamne Pierre Guyon, jardinier, à étre rompu vif ... dans la Place du Pilory...

    Paris, Pierre-Guillaume Simon, 1778.

    Very rare decree documenting the crimes and punishment of one Pierre Guyon, a murderous gardener from Poitiers; a case of green fingers turning blood-red.

    £175

  16. [MURDER.]

    A Warning Piece against the Crime of Murder: or, an Account of many extraordinary and most providential Discoveries of...

    [London,] Printed for Wiliam Owen … ; and R Goadby, in Sherborne. [1752.]

    First edition, very scarce, a fascinating compendium of grim crimes both real and clearly fictional, many ‘providentially discovered’ in a dream, revealed by returning ghosts, or uncovered ‘after many years concealment’, published in the context of the Murder Act of 1752 which introduced...

    £300

  17. [NAPOLEON.]

    Lois et réglemens pour les lycees.

    Paris, ‘de l’imprimerie de la République, an XII,’ 1803.

    Rare first edition of this extremely interesting collection of laws and regulations governing secondary education in France, reflecting the historic changes enacted between 1801 and 1803 by Napoleon as First Consul, in particular the establishment of lycées.

    £175

  18. [NATIONAL SOCIALISM] [OCCUPIED FRANCE]

    Finis les mauvais jours! Papa gagne de l’argent en Allemagne! [The bad days are over!...

    [Paris], Office de Répartition de l´Affichage, 1943.

    Rare, encouraging the voluntary relocation of French workers from impoverished and semi-starved France to Germany factories.

    £350

  19. [NAUDÉ, Philippe, attr. author].

    Histoire abrégée de la naissance & du progrez du Kouakerisme avec celle de ses dogmes.

    Cologne, Pierre Marteau, 1692.

    First edition of the earliest work on the Quakers to be published in French. In his survey of English Quakerism the author gives voice to widespread contemporary English criticisms of the movement, radicalizing the charge of Socinianism into one of ‘pure deism’ and ultimately atheism.

    £750

  20. NICHOLSON, Joseph Shield.

    Tenant’s Gain not Landlord’s Loss, and some other economic Aspects of the Land Question.

    Edinburgh, David Douglas, 1883.

    First edition. ‘The vitality of popular fallacies is remarkable, and the old mercantile notion of trade that one man’s gain is necessarily another man’s loss still prevails as regards compensation for agricultural improvements. The exposure of this and other fallacies is one of the aims...

    £250