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. AKHMATOVA, Anna Andreevna, translator.

    Golosa poetov. Stikhi zarubezhnykh poetov...

    Moscow, “Progress”, 1965.

    First edition: translations by Akhmatova...

    £450

  2. ALEICHEM, Sholem [pseud. Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich].

    Sholom Aleikhem. Perevod s evreiskago S....

    St Petersburg, M. G. Kornfel’d, 1911.

    Very rare first edition in Russian of three...

    £2000

  3. ALEKSANDROVA, Zinaida and Dmitry GORLOV.

    Мишкины соседи [Little...

    Moscow, VLKSM Izdatelstvo Detskoi Literaturi,...

    First edition. A very nice copy...

    £350

  4. [ALTOLAGUIRRE, Manuel, translator.] PUSHKIN, Aleksandr.

    Teatro (El Convidado de piedra. Festin...

    Barcelona, Editado por la Asociación...

    First edition: Altolaguirre’s translation...

    £300

  5. ANDREEV, Leonid Nikolaevich.

    Tsar Golod. Predstavlenie v piati kartinakh...

    [St Petersburg,] ‘Shipovnik’, 1908.

    First edition of this play by one of the...

    £800

  6. APUKHTIN, Aleksei Nikolaevich.

    Stikhotvoreniia [Poems].

    St Petersburg, F. S. Sushchinsky, 1886.

    First edition of Apukhtin’s first collection...

    £750

  7. BABEL’, Isaak Emmanuilovich.

    Stat’i i materialy [Articles and materials].

    Leningrad, “Academia”, 1928

    First edition, from the ‘Academia’...

    £250

  8. BAL’MONT, Konstantin Dmitrievich, translator.

    Sochineniia Shelli... Vypusk 7-i, Chenchi,...

    Moscow, Mamontov, 1899

    First edition of Balmont’s translation...

    £900

  9. BAL’MONT, Konstantin Dmitrievich.

    Iz Mirovoi Poezii [From the world’s poetry].

    [Berlin], “Slovo”, 1921.

    First edition: Bal’mont’s translations...

    £50

  10. BELISHEVA, S. P., translator.

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

    Germany, c. 1830

    A contemporary manuscript of an early 19th...

    £1750

  11. BELYI, Andrei, pseud. [i.e. Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev].

    Korolevna i rytsari. Skazki [The king’s...

    St Petersburg, “Alkonost”, 1919.

    First edition. The majority of this collection...

    £550

  12. BELYI, Andrei, pseud. [i.e. Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev].

    Stikhi o Rossii [Poems about Russia].

    Berlin, “Epokha”, 1922.

    First edition of these poems, written between...

    £300

  13. BELYI, Andrei, pseud. [i.e. Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev].

    Posle razluki. Berlinskii pesennik [After...

    St Petersburg & Berlin, “Epokha”, [1922].

    First edition. Published the same year...

    £350

  14. BELYI, Andrei, pseud. [i.e. Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev].

    Tragediia tvorchestva. Dostoevskii i Tolstoi...

    [Moscow,] “Musaget”, [1911].

    First edition of Bely’s important essay...

    £750

  15. BELYI, Andrei, pseud. [i.e. Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev].

    Zapiski chudaka. Tom pervyi [– vtoroi]...

    Moscow and Berlin, “Helikon”, 1922.

    First edition of Bely’s Notes of an...

    £550

  16. [BELYI, Andrei, pseud. [i.e. Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev], et al].

    Kak my pishem [How we write].

    Leningrad, Izdatel’stvo pisatelei, [1930].

    First edition: sketches on the art of writing,...

    £450

  17. BLOK, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich.

    Stikhi o Rossii [Poems about Russia].

    [St Petersburg], “Otechestvo”, 1915.

    First edition of a rare volume of poems,...

    £400

  18. BLOK, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich.

    O liubvi, poezii i gosudarstvennoi sluzhbe....

    Berlin, “Skify”, [1920].

    First edition: a comic one-act dialogue...

    £250

  19. BLOK, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich.

    O sovremennom sostoianii russkogo simvolizma...

    St Petersburg, “Alkonost”, 1921.

    First edition, a lecture read by Blok in...

    £150