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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[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
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[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
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[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
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[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
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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
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[NOLHAC, Jean-Baptiste-Marie.]
Réflexions sur la punition des grands crimes, considérée dans ses rapports avec la morale, extraites...
Lyon, Louis Perrin, 1836.
First and only edition, inscribed from the author. An extensive essay against the death penalty, and especially against public executions by Jean-Baptiste-Marie Nolhac (1770-1878) using arguments derived from ‘la digité de la nature humaine et du danger des spectacles sanglants’, written in response...
£150
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[NURSERY SCHOOLS.]
Intorno alla fondazione ed allo stato attuale degli asili di carità per l’infanzia in Milano. Relazione letta...
Milan, C.G. Bianchi and company, 1837.
First and only edition, rare, of this report on the establishment and progress of nursery schools for the poor in Milan – both boys and girls – with the aim of serving the poorest and most populated districts of the city.
£400
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[ORDE, John Powlett.]
A collection of 111 original compositions in Latin (and occasionally Greek) verse and prose.
Eton, 1818–1820.
A delightful insight into classical education at Eton, where until the mid-nineteenth century Greek and Latin were the only official classroom subjects, and Latin composition was considered a key accomplishment.
£1750
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OWEN, Robert.
Robert Owen’s Journal. Explanatory of the means to well-place, well-employ, and well-educate, the whole population....
London, James Watson, 1850-1.
The first 23 issues of Robert Owen’s Journal, which would go on to reach a total of 104 issues ending in October 1852. Almost entirely written by Owen himself, the Journal was the main vehicle of Owenite social and political philosophy, directed to a general readership as well as policy-makers.
£350
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[OXFORD, University of.]
Parecbolae sive excerpta e corpore statutorum Universitatis Oxoniensis. Accedunt articuli religionis...
Oxford, e typographeo Clarendoniano, 1771.
Later edition of this essential student guide to the University of Oxford’s statutes, this copy with the signed matriculation oath of Charles Davie, 1784, by which he agreed to the Thirty-nine Articles, the Oath of Supremacy, and the statutes and privileges of the University.
£250
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[PADUA.]
Statuta Patavina noviter impressa cum diligenti cura et castigatione et cum additionibus necessariis tam provisionum...
Venice, Girolamo Giberti, 25 January 1528.
An attractive volume of statutes relating to the city of Padua in northern Italy, edited by the legal scholar Bartolomeo Abborario, with detailed annotations by a practicing local lawyer.
£2500
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[PARKER, Richard Green; Junkichi KATAYAMA 片山 淳吉, editor.]
物理階梯 [Butsuri kaitei; 'A Guide to Physics'].
Gifu Prefecture, Ministry of Education, Mizunoesaru/Jinshin [i.e. 1872].
First edition, very rare, of Japan’s first elementary science textbook, a major catalyst for the introduction of Western physics after the Meiji Restoration.
£1750
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PARR, Samuel.
A Discourse on Education and on the Plans pursued in Charity-Schools.
[Norwich, John Crouse for] London, T. Cadell and T. Evans, and Norwich, J. & C. Berry, [1785?].
First and only edition of this treatise on education, first delivered as a sermon, by the noted schoolmaster and writer Samuel Parr (1747–1825).
£175
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PELLISSON, [Paul].
Histoire de l’Academie Françoise par M. Pelisson [sic], nouvelle edition, augmentee des deux discours...
Amsterdam, Jean Frederic Bernard, 1717.
An attractive prize copy of Pellisson’s history of the Académie française, with a printed presentation label from the Jesuit college in the Occitan town of Carpentras, outside Avignon.
£150
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PERRIN, M.
[Jean Baptiste]. Fables amusantes, avec une Table générale & particulière des Mots & de leur Signification en Anglois,...
A Londres chez B. Law & Fils …T. Cadell … P. Elmsly … 1793
Seventh edition of a popular educational work first published in 1771. Jean Baptiste Perrin (fl. 1767-98) worked as a private French tutor in Dublin. He was a prolific author of works for learning French (the advertisements at the end list 18 of them, several commended by the Monthly Review). The 140...
£75
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PERUCCI, Francesco.
Pompe funebri di tutte le nationi del mondo, raccolte dale storie sagre et profane.
Verona, Francesco Rossi, 1639.
First edition of Perucci’s account of the funeral practices of Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas, extensively illustrated with engravings copied in reverse from Porcacchi’s 1574 Funerali antichi di diversi popoli, et nationi, inscribed by a Scottish antiquary and documented book collector....
£975
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[PHILOSOPHY.
Philosophy course on logic. Brussels, early eighteenth century?]
[Brussels, early eighteenth century?]
An elegant manuscript philosophy course on logic, likely produced at a Jesuit college, where logic was one of the three philosophy courses taught along with natural philosophy and metaphysics.
£375
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PIERTZ, Leonhard, Praesidens; Johann Ernst SCHLERETH, Respondens.
De sacramentis in specie, Eucharistia et Poenitentia...
Würzburg, Johann Michael Kleyer, 1703.
A good copy of this rare Würzburg dissertation on the sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance, under the Jesuit professor Leonhard Piertz (1662–1741). The dissertation discusses when the Eucharist was instituted, what verbal formulae are necessary for consecration, whether the Eucharistic sacrifice...
£175
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[PINNOCK, William].
A catechism of the history of France, containing a clear outline of all the important changes which that country...
London, Printed by Bensley and Sons for Pinnock and Maunder, [c. 1819].
Second edition of this much-reprinted guide to French history for British youth from the Roman conquest of Gaul to the fall of Napoleon, one of Pinnock’s many catechisms on historical and scientific subjects.
£125
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POPE, William.
Manuscript arithmetic schoolbook.
[Tiverton?] ‘Sunday Octr 24.th 1804’.
A manuscript arithmetic schoolbook belonging to one William Pope, very well preserved in its original stationery binding and wrapper, with provincially printed arithmetic tables as endpapers.
£850