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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SHAGINYAN, Marietta Sergeevna.
O blazhenstve imushchago: poeziia Z.N. Gippius [On the bliss of the propertied: the poetry of...
Moscow, “Al’tsiona”, [1912].
First edition, a critical essay by Shaginian published in the same year as Orientalia (advertised here), the collection of poetry that brought her fame.
£350
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SHAGINYAN, Marietta Sergeevna.
Puteshestvie v Veimar [Journey to Weimar].
Moscow & Petrograd, Gosizdat, 1923.
First edition of Shaginyan’s account of a pilgrimage to Weimar, presented by the author ‘to the respected Vladimir Pavlovich Pirogov in dear memory’ (trans.).
£600
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S[HEAFE], T[homas].
Vindiciae senectutis, or, a Plea for Old-Age: which is senis cujusdam cygnea cantio. And the several Points...
London, George Mither and are to be sold by Joshua Kirton, and Thomas Warren, 1639.
First edition of a rare encomium on senectitude by the eighty-year-old canon of Windsor, Thomas Sheafe, who died later in 1639, dedicated to the supremely long-lived divine Laurence Chaderton (1536?–1640), first Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. This is the rarer second issue, with a cancel...
£1250
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SHKAPSKAIA, Maria Mikhailovna.
Krov’-ruda [Blood-ore].
St Petersburg & Berlin, Epokha, 1922.
First edition of a collection of twenty-one poems by Maria Shkapskaya (1881–1952).
£300
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SILIUS ITALICUS, C.; John CAREY, editor.
Punicorum libri XVII, sedulâ recensione accurati [cover: Recensuit et...
London, T. Davison for Rodwell & Martin, J. Booker, Baldwin, Cradock, & Joy, G. & W. Whittaker, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Co., T. Cadell,...
First and only ‘Regent’s Classics’ edition of Silius Italicus’s epic poem on the Second Punic War, an attractive copy, uncut in the publisher’s printed boards.
£100
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SIMEONI, Gabriele.
Comentarii di Gabriello Symeoni Fiorentino sopra alla tetrarchia di Vinegia, di Milano, di Mantova, et di Ferrara ...
Venice, Comino da Trino di Monferrato, 1546.
Scarce first edition of Gabriele Simeoni’s (1509–1575) political history of the most powerful city-states of sixteenth-century Italy – Venice, Milan, Mantua, and Ferrara – with full-page genealogical diagrams of the Visconti, Gonzaga, and d’Este families.
£550
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SISMONDI, J. C. L. Simon de.
Nouveaux principes d’économie politique, ou de la richesse dans ses rapports avec la population...
Paris, Delaunay, Treuttel & Wurtz, 1819.
First edition. ‘A number of concepts and theories that later became important in the history of economics first appeared in the writings of the Swiss economist J. C. L. Simonde de Sismondi … Sismondi developed the first aggregate equilibrium income theory and the first algebraic growth...
£850
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SMITH, Albert Richard.
The new Game of the Ascent of Mont Blanc.
London, printed by Hall, 43, South Molton St., [c. 1855–57].
Rare first edition of this attractive board game based on Smith’s ascent of Mont Blanc on 12 August 1851. Upon his return, Smith opened a stage show based on his experiences at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, mixing dramatic description, song, illustrations, and even St Bernard dogs. It was...
£3750
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SMITH, Robert.
The Universal Directory for taking alive and destroying Rats, and all other Kinds of four-footed and winged Vermin,...
London, printed for the author, 1768.
First edition of a guide to catching and killing all manner of crawling and flying vermin, illustrated with plates, by the professional exterminator and rat-catcher Robert Smith.
£500
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SMITH, William.
The Speeches of Mr. Smith, of South Carolina, delivered in the House of Representatives of the United States, in...
Philadelphia printed, London reprinted for John Stockdale, 1794.
First London edition, a rebuff to the punitive anti-British tariffs proposed by the future President James Madison, first printed in Philadelphia in the same year and also reprinted in Edinburgh.
£175
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[SOUTH AND CENTRAL AMERICAN COINAGE.]
The King’s Assay Master’s Report, with Tables, shewing the Weights and Fineness of the...
[London, 1834].
Three tables of coinage weights and fineness for Mexico, Central America, Bolivia, Peru, Chile, Rio Plata and Columbia, drawn up by Robert and Henry Bingley of the Assay Office ‘to enable Government to form a correct estimate of the value of South American Dollars, as a supply for the military chests...
£250
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[SPENCE, Joseph.] Nicholas TINDAL.
A Guide to classical Learning: or, Polymetis abridged … being a Work absolutely necessary,...
London, J. Dodsley, 1777.
Second illustrated edition (fourth overall) of Nicholas Tindal’s abridgement for schools of Polymetis (1747), a dialogue by the traveller, scholar, friend of Alexander Pope, and Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford Joseph Spence (1699–1748), in which he explored the connections...
£250
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SPENCER, Herbert.
The Study of Sociology. [The International Scientific Series].
New York, Appleton, 1874.
First edition thus, the first American appearance of the sociological portion of Spencer’s ‘philosophical system’, which commenced in 1860, and thus the first appearance in America of his foundational system of sociology, which unified Darwinian evolution and social science, famous for introducing...
£100
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SPILBERGEN, Joris van, and Jacob LE MAIRE.
Speculum orientalis occidentalisque Indiae navigationum; quarum una Georgii a...
Leiden, Nicolaes van Geelkercken, 1619.
First Latin edition of one of the classic Dutch illustrated voyages, identical in format and illustration to the same publisher’s Dutch-language edition of the same year.
£20000
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SPURZHEIM, Johann Gaspar.
A View of the elementary Principles of Education, founded on the Study of the Nature of Man.
Boston, Marsh Capen and Lyon, 1832.
First American edition (first Edinburgh, 1821) of this eccentric work on education by the German phrenologist Johann Caspar Spurzheim, including observations on the development of the brain, drawn in part from the study of ancient cultures.
£125
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SSYL’NYM I ZAKLIUCHENNYM.
St. Petersburg, [Vol’naia Tipografiia for “Shipovnik”], 1907.
Rare first edition of this anthology of stories, novellas and poems by Russian authors; a publication intended to raise funds in support of the exiled and imprisoned (as the title translates), the victims of the Tsarist reaction after the 1905 revolution. Among the mainly socially oriented and neo-realistic...
£350
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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
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[STANHOPE, Hester Lucy, Lady.] [MERYON, Charles Lewis, editor.]
Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope, as related by...
London, [Frederick Shoberl for] Henry Colburn … 1845.
First edition, the entertaining memoirs of the Middle East traveller Lady Hester Stanhope (1776–1839). Having looked after her uncle, William Pitt, during most of her youth and run his household while he was Prime Minister for the second time, Stanhope left for the Levant in 1810. She took with...
£650
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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
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STAUNFORD [Stanford], William, Sir.
Les Plees del Coron, Divisees in Plusors Titles & Comon Lieux. Per Queux Home Pluis Redement...
[London], Richard Tottell, 1583.
The definitive edition, and that owned by Thomas Jefferson, of the first book devoted entirely to criminal law. First published posthumously in 1557 and based on Bracton and the Year Books, Les Plees deals in turn with offences, jurisdiction, appeals, indictments and defences. The third...
£2500