Foreign Literature
Contact Donovan Rees
This department specialises in rare and important works of French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish and South American literature from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries.
Here you can find first editions and signed or presentation copies of authors as diverse as Akhmatova, Balzac, Borges, Camus, Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Goethe, Goldoni, Hugo, Kafka, Leopardi, Lorca, Manzoni, Pirandello, Pushkin, Schiller, Tolstoy, Zola, and many others. Among the important works which have passed through our hands are the original working manuscript of Turgenev's Fathers and Sons, now in the Pushkin House in St Petersburg, the only known copy of the first edition of Brecht's first play, Baal (1920) with his working notes, and an extraordinary collection of Pushkin first editions.
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JUSSIEU, Laurent Pierre de.
Antoine et Maurice. Ouvrage qui a obtenu le prix proposé par la Société Royale pour l’amélioration...
Paris, L. Colas, 1821.
First edition, rare, of this unsurprisingly moralising novel by the writer, geologist, and natural historian Laurent Pierre de Jussieu (1792-1866), written in response to a competition held by the Royal Society of the Improvement of Prisons to find the best book to circulate amongst inmates.
£250
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DUMAS, Alexandre.
Autograph letter, signed.
[Paris, not before 1859.]
A short note by the novelist and playwright Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) sending a theatre ticket and arranging to meet the unknown recipient at the Comédie-française (‘theatre francais’) at midday the following day. He says that he will do whatever he can to obtain a small box at the Théâtre...
£750
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FRICKER, Bernard.
Autograph working manuscript of a collection of essays and pensées entitled ‘La Marche du Jeu’.
Circa 1946-52.
An extraordinary, unique production, with seven long, unpublished observational essays by Fricker on the post-war Parisian art world, including long discussions of the work of Francis Picabia, Marcel Duchamp, and Blaise Cendrars; assembled in hand-decorated chemises and a folding box designed...
£6500
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OHNET, Georges.
The Battles of Life. The Ironmaster. From the French of Georges Ohnet … by Lady G[eorgiana] O[sborne]. Authorized...
London: Wyman & Sons … 1884.
First edition in English. Le maître de forges (1882), one of a series of novels published by Ohnet under the title ‘Les batailles de la vie’, was a bestseller of French nineteenth-century sentimental fiction, and no less successful in England. Another English translation, by Ernest Vizetelly,...
£450
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GARCÍA LORCA, Federico.
Chant funèbre pour Ignacio Sanchez Mejias & Ode à Walt Whitman. Traduits par Rolland-Simon.
[Paris], GLM, 1938.
Rare first edition in French of Lorca’s Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejías: copy no. 2 of 20 printed on hollande pannekoek (first paper) of a total edition of 470.
£500
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[SOUZA, Adélaïde de.]
Charles et Marie. Par l’auteur d’Adèle de Senange.
Paris, Maradan, 1802.
First edition of this novel describing British society at the beginning of the nineteenth century, written in the form of an aristocratic young Englishman’s diary.
£400
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GARCIA LORCA, Federico.
Cinq romances gitanes, texte espagnol et traduction par Guy Lévis-Mano.
[Paris], GLM, [1939].
First edition, one of 475 numbered copies, of translations into French by Guy Lévis-Mano of five poems from the Romancero gitano: ‘Saint Gabriel’, ‘La casada infiel’, ‘Romance sonámbulo’, ‘Romance de la Guardia Civil española’ and ‘Romance de la luna, luna’.
£100
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[COLETTE.] KELLER, Fernand, and André LAUTIER.
Colette (Colette Willy), son oeuvre.
Paris, Éditions de La Nouvelle Revue Critique, 1923.
First edition of this critical work on Colette (1873–1954), the French pioneer of autobiographical fiction best known for her Claudine novels, annotated by her ex-husband, Willy.
£900
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GIONO, Jean.
Colline.
Paris, Bernard Grasset, Les Cahiers Verts, 1929.
First edition of Giono’s first book; it forms the first part of his successful ‘Pan trilogy’ with Un de Baumugnes (1929) and Regain (1930).
£450
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JABÈS, Edmond.
El, Ou le dernier livre.
[Paris], Gallimard, [1973].
First edition, one of 40 numbered copies on vélin pur fil.
£300
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GUMILEV, Nikolai Stepanovich (translator). GAUTIER, Théophile.
Emali i kamei [Émaux et camées].
[St Petersburg, M. V. Popov, 1914.]
First edition, very rare, of Gumilev’s first published volume of translation, and Gautier’s first appearance in Russian. This is the only contemporary edition; it first received a reprint (in a bilingual edition) some seventy-five years later.
£850
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[COLETTE.] ‘WILLY’, pseud. [Henri GAUTHIER-VILLARS].
En Bombe. Roman modern. Illustrations photographiques.
Paris, Nilsson, Per Lamm, [1904].
First edition of these vignettes of bohemian life in fin-de-siècle Paris by author and critic Willy, illustrated by nearly one hundred photographs of the author himself, as well as Marcel Boulestin, Marcelle Rossat, and Colette’s famous French bulldog, Toby-Chien.
£600
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PARADIN, Guillaume.
Gulielmi Paradini Anchemani Epigrammata ...
Lyons, Ant. Gryphius, 1581.
First and only edition of this French historian’s poetry including verses about or addressed to Ronsard, Pontus de Tyard, Claude Rouillet, and the Lyons printers Sébastien and Antoine Gryphe, and Jean de Tournes.
£950
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MONTESQUIEU, Charles de Secondat.
Histoire véritable publiée d’après un nouveau manuscrit avec une introduction et des notes...
Bordeaux, G. Gounouilhou, 1902.
Second edition of Montesquieu’s philosophical, quasi-oriental tale, a prelude to his great work L’Esprit des lois. Written in the 1730s and again in 1754, and influenced by Lucian and the 18th-century vogue for oriental fiction, the Histoire véritable remained unpublished until 1892. This 1902 second...
£100
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[BAUDELAIRE, Charles.]
Hommage à C. F. Denecourt. Fontainebleau. Paysages – Légendes – Souvenirs – Fantaisies.
Paris, Librairie de L. Hachette & Co., 1855.
First edition of this anthology compiled by Fernand Desnoyers and Auguste Luchet, published in honour of the self-appointed keeper of the forest of Fontainebleau, Claude-François Denecourt. It includes texts by Asselineau, Banville, Baudelaire, Béranger, Brizeux, Champfleury, Dupont, Gautier, Hugo,...
£750
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AZAÏS, Gabriel, and Charles LABOR.
Illustrated manuscript volume of poetry, comprising ‘Vingt-six janvier 1836’ by Azaïs,...
Béziers, c. 1836?
An attractive presentation volume, with poems by Azaïs (1805-1888) and Labor (1813-1900), and fine vignette sketches. Azaïs, later author of Les Troubadours de Béziers (1869) was a member of the Félibrige, the literary organization founded by Frédéric Mistral to promote Occitan language...
£1750
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MAINE DE BIRAN. [MARIE FRANÇOIS PIERRE GONTHIER DE BIRAN.]
Influence de l’Habitude sur la Faculté de Penser.
Paris, Henrichs, 1803.
First edition of Maine de Biran’s first major work, in which he draws a distinction between what he calls passive habits, i.e. sensations and impressions which become dulled with repetition, and active habits, i.e. those which are conscious, and willed. “The effect of this, which was borne out by...
£2000
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VOLTAIRE, François Marie Arouet de. SOLOGUB, Fedor Kuzmich, pseud. [Fedor TETERNIKOV], translator.
Kandid, ili optimizm....
St Petersburg, “Panteon”, 1909.
First edition, very rare, of Sologub’s translation of Candide.
£500
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MÉRIMÉE, Prosper.
La Chambre bleue. Nouvelle dédiée à Madame de la Rhune.
Brussels, Librairie de la Place de la Monnaie, 1872.
Very rare first procurable edition of Mérimée’s novella La Chambre bleue, one of 129 copies printed. The first edition (‘Biarritz, 1866’ = Paris, Jules Claye, 1871) was published in only three copies.
£750
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JABÈS, Edmond.
La clef de voûte.
[Paris], G.L.M., [1950].
First edition: one of 400 numbered copies, of which this is one of 20 on vélin du Marais.
£550