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. [HOSPICE SAINT-NICOLAS, METZ.]

    Deed granting land to the hospice.

    Metz, 5 May 1464.

    A significant document recording the grant...

    £450

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

    Summa de potestate ecclesiastica.

    Augsburg, [Johann Schüssler,] 6 March 1473.

    First edition of this highly important...

    £22500

  3. EUSEBIUS CAESARIENSIS; RUFINUS AQUILEIENSIS, translator.

    Historia ecclesiastica.

    Rome, Johannes Philippus de Lignamine,...

    The Syston Park copy of the earliest history...

    £4500

  4. THOMAS AQUINAS; Antonius PIZAMANUS, editor.

    Opuscula [with a life of St Thomas].

    Venice, Hermannus Liechtenstein, 7 September...

    First collected edition of seventy-one...

    £3750

  5. ANTONIUS de Vercellis. 

    Sermones quadragesimales de XII mirabilibus...

    Venice, Johannes and Gregorius de Gregoriis,...

    A remarkable copy of the first edition...

    £8500

  6. [JUSTICES OF THE PEACE.]

    The Boke of Justices of Peas the Charge...

    ...

    First edition(?), very rare, of the first...

    £27500

  7. DOMINICUS DE FLANDRIA.

    Dominici de Flandria ordinis predicator[um]...

    Venice, Giorgio Arrivabene for the heirs...

    Scarce early editions of two Aristotelian...

    £3000

  8. PLATO; [Marsilio FICINO].

    Platonis opera.

    [(Colophon:) Venice, Filippo Pinzi, 22...

    Third edition of Marsilio Ficino’s important...

    £5000

  9. PLINY the Younger, Gaius SUETONIUS TRANQUILLUS, and Julius OBSEQUENS.

    C. Plinii Secundi Novocomensis Epistolarum...

    [(Colophon:) Venice, in the house of Aldus...

    The second Aldine edition of the letters...

    £975

  10. IRENICUS, Franciscus.

    Germaniae exegeseos volumina duodecima...

    [(Colophon:) Hagenau, Thomas Anshelm for...

    First editions of a pair of sixteenth-century...

    £3500

  11. MARSILIUS of Inghen, GILES of Rome, and ALBERT of Saxony.

    Marsilii de genera[tione et corruptione]....

    [(Colophon:) Venice, [Boneto Locatello...

    A trio of late thirteenth- and fourteenth-century...

    £1500

  12. FLORUS, Lucius. 

    Lucii Flori rerum ab urbe condita liber...

    [Venice, in aedibus Aldi et Andreae Soceri,...

    Florus’s epitome of Roman history, extracted...

    £750

  13. ALCIONIO, Pietro.

    Petri Alcyonii Medices legatus de exsilio.

    [Venice, in the house of Aldus Manutius...

    First edition of Alcionio’s dialogue...

    £5750

  14. PLUTARCH.

    La seconda & ultima parte delle vite di...

    Venice, Nicolao di Aristotile detto Zoppino,...

    An attractive illustrated edition of twenty-seven...

    £2750

  15. [PADUA.] 

    Statuta Patavina noviter impressa cum diligenti...

    Venice, Girolamo Giberti, 25 January 1528. 

    An attractive volume of statutes relating...

    £2500

  16. ITALY – PIEVE DI SAN MINIATO DI RUBBIANA.

    Petition to Pope Clement VII, in Latin,...

    The petition explains that the parish of...

    £250

  17. DIO CASSIUS.

    Dione historico delle guerre et fatti de...

    Venice, Niccolò Zoppino, March 1533.

    First edition of Dio Cassius’s Roman...

    £2500

  18. EUSTRATIUS of Nicaea, et al.

    Ευστρατιου και αλλων...

    [(Colophon:) Venice, heirs of...

    Editio princeps of the Greek commentaries...

    £5500

  19. SUETONIUS Tranquillus, Gaius, and HERODIAN OF ANTIOCH.

    Vita di duodeci imperatori… nuovamente...

    Venice, Venturino di Rossinelli [for Curzio...

    Annotated copy of a scarce edition of this...

    £1250

  20. [BOUCHET, Jean.]

    Les triu[m]phes de la noble et amoureuse...

    Paris, Estienne Caveiller for Pierre Sergent,...

    Unrecorded issue of Jean Bouchet’s contemplative...

    £4500