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.
  1. BELISHEVA, S. P., translator.

    ‘An die Fantasie, aus dem russischen.’...

    Germany, c. 1830

    A contemporary manuscript of an early 19th...

    £1750

  2. BRANDT, Johann Daniel und Georg Karl.

    Opfer de Lieb’ und Freundschaft. Dargebracht...

    Berlin, Wilhelm Dieterici, [1790].

    A luxurious and unusual production, both...

    £400

  3. BUQUOY, Georg Franz August de Longueval, Freiherr von Vaux, Graf von.

    Anregungen für philosophisch-wissenschaftliche...

    Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, 1825.

    First edition, rare, of a comprehensive...

    £950

  4. CELAN, Paul.

    Von Schwelle zu Schwelle. Gedichte.

    Stuttgart, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, [1955].

    First edition of Celan’s second collection...

    £400

  5. DÖBLIN, Alfred.

    Berlin Alexanderplatz. Traduit de l’Allemand...

    [Paris], Librairie Gallimard, [1933].

    With a punning signed presentation inscription...

    £750

  6. [GOETHE.] 

    REICHARDT, Johann Friedrich.  Goethe’s...

    Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, [1809–11]. 

    Very rare first complete edition of...

    £6500

  7. [GOETHE.] ECKERMANN, Johann Peter.

    Razgovory Gete sobrannye Ekkermannom. Perevod...

    St Petersburg, A. S. Suvorin, 1891.

    Rare first edition in Russian of Eckermann’s...

    £1500

  8. GOETHE, Johan Wolfgang von; Boris Leonidovich PASTERNAK, translator

    Тайны [Tainy; ‘Die Geheimnisse’...

    Moscow, Izdatel’stvo Sovremennik, 1922. 

    First and only edition, very rare,...

    £1200

  9. GRASS, Günter.

    Gleisdreieck.

    Darmstadt, Luchterhand, 1960.

    Rare first edition of this volume of poems...

    £100

  10. GRASS, Günter.

    Onkel, Onkel. Ein Spiel in vier Akten....

    Berlin, Klaus Wagenbach, 1965.

    First edition.

    £75

  11. GRASS, Günter.

    The Danzig Trilogy [The Tin Drum, Cat and...

    New York, Pantheon & Harcourt Brace &...

    First US editions, all translated by Ralph...

    £500

  12. GRASS, Günter.

    Selected Poems … With translations from...

    New York, Harcourt Brace & World Inc., 1966.

    First US edition, with the original German...

    £50

  13. HARINGER, Jakob.

    Die Einsiedelei. Ein Stundenblatt. Nr....

    Amsterdam, Christof Brundel Verlag, [1930].

    First edition, rare, of a collection of...

    £250

  14. HEINE, Heinrich.

    Zur Geschichte der neueren schönen Literatur...

    Paris & Leipzig, Heideloff und Campe, 1833.

    First edition of a work on contemporary...

    £1250

  15. HEINE, Heinrich.

    Französische Zustände.

    Hamburg, Hoffmann und Campe, 1833.

    First edition in book form of a series...

    £550

  16. HESSE, Hermann.

    Das Glasperlenspiel.

    Zurich, Fretz und Wasmuth Verlag, 1943.

    First edition of Hesse's last, quintessential...

    £750

  17. HESSE, Hermann.

    Frühe Prosa.

    Zurich, Fretz & Wasmuth, [1948].

    First edition of this collection, with...

    £100

  18. HOFFMANN VON FALLERSLEBEN, August Heinrich.

    Unpolitische Lieder.

    Hamburg, Hoffmann and Campe, 1840–1....

    First edition of each work. Hoffmann (1784–1874),...

    £100

  19. HOFMANNSTHAL, Hugo von.

    Die Aegyptische Helena. Oper in zwei Aufzügen.

    [Leipzig, Mainzer Presse for Insel-Verlag,...

    First edition of Hofmannsthal’s text...

    £750

  20. KAFKA, Franz.

    Ein Landarzt and Der Mord [in Die Neue...

    Leipzig, Kurt Wolff, 1918.

    First edition, containing the first appearance...

    £400