Of Population. An Enquiry Concerning the Power of Increase in the Numbers of Mankind. Being an Answer to Mr. Malthus’s Essay on that Subject. London: Longman, 1820

FIRST EDITION. In 1798 Thomas Robert Malthus published his Essay on the Principle of Population in response to William Godwin’s ideas about the “perfectibility of society” advanced in Political Justice (1793). This is Malthus’s reply.

$4,500

Le Deuxieme Sexe [The Second Sex]. Paris: Gallimard, 1949

FIRST EDITION. One of 2000 numbered copies (from an edition of 2,150).

$3,500

Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1948

FIRST EDITION of this classic, a book that helped usher in the sexual revolution.

$3,500

Esquisse d’un Tableau Historique des Progres de L’Esprit Humain. Paris: Agasse, 1795

A distinguished mathematician and friend of Voltaire, d Alembert, and Turgot, Condorcet played a major role in promoting the Revolution s democratic principles. In the Esquisse (An Historical Outline of the Progress of the Human Mind), he traces the history of man through ten epochs.

$2,800

Troisième front poèmes de guerre suivi de pièces detachés. Third front & detached pieces. London Gallery Editions, 1944

FIRST EDITION. Copy number 18 of 500 signed and numbered by Mesens. Inscribed to René Magritte and his wife: “A Georgette Magritte A René Magritte, l’exemplaire réservé pour lui, sa Femme, Noukels et Barfoot, depuis 1944. E. M.”

$2,000

Idolatry & Confusion. London Gallery Editions, [1944]

Inscribed to René Magritte: “A René Magritte, ces textes mal informés en 1944, écrit en hâte, mais prophétiques. E. L. T. Mesens.” This scarce English Surrealist tract attacks the so-called resistance poetry of Paul Eluard and Aragon as “conformist.”

$1,700

Why War?. Paris: International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation, League of Nations, 1933

First edition in English, one of 2000 numbered copies. Translated from the German by Stuart Gilbert.

$1,600

The Fight Against War. New York: John Day, (c.1933)

FIRST EDITION.

This scarce collection of Einstein’s writings on war and peace was published in 1933, the year the Nazis took power in Germany and the year Einstein left Germany for the United States. In his prefatory note, Einstein writes, “Mr. Lief [the editor, Alfred Lief] has taken great trouble in collecting utterances of mine having pacifistic content and he presents them with my authorization. … I consider it my duty to confess my pacific conviction publicly. May the seriousness of my purpose be transferred to you, my readers! A. Einstein.”

$1,500

A Treatise of Money. London: Macmillan, 1930

FIRST EDITION of “Keynes’s most ambitious and weighty work” (New Palgrave). The ensuing criticism of A Treatise On Money spurred Keynes to create his major theoretical work, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, in which he more fully developed concepts he first expressed in A Treatise. “Nevertheless, [A Treatise on Money] was the outstanding performance in its field and day” (Schumpeter).

$950

Chinese Currency. Shanghai: Presbyterian Mission Press, 1901

FIRST EDITION of this standard work on the history of Chinese currency. Edkins was a British Sinologist and Protestant missionary who spent 57 years in China, 30 of them in Beijing.

$700