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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TUGAN-BARANOVSKI, Mikhail Ivanovich.
Obshchestvennoe ekonomicheskie idealyi nashego vremeni
Saint Petersburg, Izdatelstvo ‘Vestniks Znaniya’ V.V. Bitner, 1913 .
First and only edition of Socio-Economic Ideals in Our Time, seemingly never translated into English.
£850
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UNITED STATES TARIFF COMMISSION.
The Tariff. A Bibliography. A select list of references.
Washington, U. S. Government Printing Office, 1934.
First edition of a prodigiously comprehensive bibliography on tariffs, listing 6453 works in print relating to the rationale, theory, implementation, history, policies, administration, legislation, economic aspects, and controversies on tariffs. This extensive report was published in the year in which...
£200
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VALERIANI MOLINARI, Luigi.
Discorsi concernenti la pubblica economia il gius pubblico e l’antico gius romano.
Bologna, Masi, 1809.
First edition of Valeriani’s (1758–1828) rare work of political economy presented as a science which stands as an organic complement to a nation’s set of legislation.
£750
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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
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[WALPOLE, Robert.]
Observations upon the Treaty between the Crowns of Great-Britain, France, and Spain, concluded at Seville on...
London, J. Roberts, 1729.
First edition, very rare, of Robert Walpole’s commentary on the Treaty of Seville, revised and corrected in manuscript by his brother, Horatio Walpole, who had played an important role in the negotiations. Many, but not all, of these changes were incorporated into the next edition.
£2000
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WALRAS, Auguste.
Théorie de la richesse sociale ou résumé des principes fondamentaux de l’économie politique.
Paris, Guillaumin et C.ie, 1849.
Three first editions, including the first appearance of the work which strongly influenced the work of French mathematical economist Léon Walras (1834–1910): his father Auguste’s Theory of Social Wealth.
£1750
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WALRAS, Léon.
Études d’économie sociale (Théorie de la Répartition de la Richesse sociale).
Lausanne and Paris, Rouge and Pichon & Durand-Auzias, 1936.
This, the second, definitive edition differs from the first (1896) in containing the ‘Souvenirs du Congrès de Lausanne’. The congress on taxation in Lausanne in 1860, at which Walras read a paper, was a climacteric in his career. In the audience was Louis Ruchonnet, who later became chief of the...
£100
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WARD, Colin.
Anarchy in Action.
London, George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1973.
First edition. Separating the notion of anarchism from industrial and political struggles, Ward seeks its root in everyday experience. ‘The argument of this book is that an anarchist society, a society which organizes itself without authority, is always in existence, like a seed beneath the snow, buried...
£190
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WAYLAND, Francis.
The Elements of political Economy.
New York, Leavitt, Lord & Company, 1837.
First edition of an important work long held as the leading principal economics text in American colleges. Wayland (1796–1865) was for twenty-eight years president of Brown University. ‘His notions of political economy and philanthropy dictated that the most important obligations of the state were...
£500
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WEBER, Max.
Der Sozialismus.
Vienna, Phobus, Pimmer, 1918.
First edition of Weber’s early and influential lecture articulating the author’s sceptical view on socialism.
£300
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WEST INDIA DOCK COMPANY.
Three documents concerning the financing and early success of the new docks at the Isle of Dogs.
London, 1799–1810.
Three key documents concerning the financing and early success of the new docks at the Isle of Dogs, the first enclosed wet docks to be established on the Thames. Their construction was prompted by West India merchants and shipowners, outraged at the losses of sugar, rum, and other cargoes due to theft...
£1350
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[WILD & Co.]
Large sample book of printed textiles.
[Turin, c. 1920?]
A large collection of samples of printed textiles, displaying a wide variety of techniques and applications.
£1250