Foreign Literature
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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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PUSHKIN, Aleksandr Sergeevich.
Sochineniia A. S. Pushkina. Tom pervyi [- shestoi + Prilozheniia]… Izdanie Ia. A. Isakova [The...
St Petersburg, Eduard Prats, 1859-60.
Third collected edition of the works of Pushkin, complete with the supplement volume compiled by Grigorii Gennadi; this is the first edition to be edited by Isakov. Very rare.
£8000
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OSTROVSKII, Aleksandr Nikolaevich.
Bednaia Nevesta, komediia v piati deistviiakh [The poor bride, a comedy in five acts].
Moscow, Stepanova, 1852
First edition. A rare early play by one of the leading Russian playwrights of the 19th century. Ostrovsky’s second play, The Poor Bride, was first published in the literary magazine The Muscovite (edited by Mikhail Pogodin) earlier in 1852. Initially banned from production by the censor, it was one...
£6500
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PISEMSKII, Aleksei Feofilaktovich.
Povesti i razskazy … v trekh chastiakh [Stories and tales … in three parts] …
Moscow, Stepanova, 1853.
Very rare first collected edition of the works of Pisemsky, including the first appearance in book form of many of his acclaimed early stories (Tiufiak (The Muff, translated into English as The Simpleton), Pitershchik (The Petersburger), Mr Batmanov, Brak...
£4800
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BRODSKII, Iosif Aleksandrovich.
Novye stansy k Avguste. Stikhi k M.B., 1962-1982 [New stanzas to Augusta. Poems to M.B., 1962-1982]....
[Soviet Union, c. 1983].
A rare samizdat of Joseph Brodsky’s poems, prepared in typescript for clandestine circulation in the Soviet Union at a time when his works could not be published or circulated there.
£3500
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KHARMS, Daniil Ivanovich, translator. BUSCH, Wilhelm.
Plikh i Pliukh [Plisch und Plum].
Moscow, Detizdat, 1937.
First edition in book form, very rare, of Daniil Kharms’s Russian free verse translation of the children’s story by Wilhelm Busch about two mischievous dogs, second only in fame to his Max und Moritz. The translation had been first published in the children’s magazine Chizh in 1936 (nos. 8-12),...
£3000
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TOLSTOY, Lev Nikolaevich.
Khoziain i rabotnik. Povest’ [Master and Man. A Story].
St Petersburg, V.S. Balashev and Co., 10 March 1895.
One of the earliest printings of one of Tolstoy’s greatest late short stories, revolving around a Damascene moment in the life of an avaricious landowner.
£3000
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PISEMSKII, Aleksei Feofilaktovich.
Ocherki iz krest’ianskago byta [Sketches from Peasant Life].
St Petersburg, [A. Dmitriev,] 1856.
First edition: ‘one of Pisemsky’s most universally acclaimed books’ (Moser, p. 54) and the one which cemented his reputation as ‘a chronicler of the life of the common people’ (Terras).
£3000
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OLESHA, Iurii Karlovich.
Zavist’. Roman, s risunkami Natana Al’tman [Envy. A novel, with drawings by Nathan Altman].
Moscow-Leningrad, “Zemlia Fabrika, [1928].
First edition of this famous short satirical novel which ‘catapulted Olesha into the first rank of Soviet writers’ (Terras). It was fêted by both Soviet and émigré critics and established the young writer’s reputation almost overnight. Olesha later adapted it as a play, Zagovor...
£3000
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TOLSTOY, Lev Nikolaevich.
Zhivoi trup. Drama v 6 deistviiakh i 12 kartinakh [A Living Corpse. A drama in 6 acts and 12 scenes].
Moscow, A. Ia. Petrov, [1911].
One of the earliest printings of Tolstoy’s Living Corpse, one of a number of editions in 1911, the year it was first staged, posthumously, at the Moscow Arts Theatre.
£2750
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PUSHKIN, Aleksandr Sergeevich. DUPONT, H. (translator).
Oeuvres choisies... traduites pour la première fois en français... Tome...
St Petersburg, chez Fd. Bellizard et Cie; Paris, Au comptoir des Imprimeurs-unis, 1847.
First collected edition of Pushkin in French, preceded in French translation only by some individual poems and stories, and a translation of The Queen of Spades in 1843. This is one of the earliest major collections of Pushkin to appear outside Russia.
£2500
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IVANOV, Vsevolod Viacheslavovich, and Viktor Borisovich SHKLOVSKII.
Iprit. Roman. Vypusk I [– IX] [Mustard Gas. A novel....
Moscow, Gosizdat, [1925].
First edition, a complete set of a rare satirical science fiction novel, issued serially.
£2500
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LESKOV, Nikolai Semenovich.
Soboriane. Stargorodskaia khronika [Cathedral Folk. Chronicle of Stargorod]. In: Russkii Vestnik,...
Moscow, University Press, March - July 1872.
The first appearance in print of all five parts of Leskov’s best known novel (or ‘chronicle’ as he preferred to call it), Cathedral Folk, published in instalments, between March and July 1872, in Russkii Vestnik.
£2500
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TOLSTOY, Lev Nikolaevich.
I. Pis’mo k Kitaitsu. (Oktabria 1906 g.) II. Kitaiskaia mudrost’. Mysli kitaiskikh myslitelei, sobrannyia...
Moscow, “Posrednika”, 1907.
First edition, very rare, of Tolstoy’s open letter to the Malaysian-Chinese man of letters Gu Hongming, who had sent several of his works to Tolstoy, including Papers from a Viceroy’s Yamen (1905).
£2250
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TOLSTOY, Count Aleksei Konstantinovich.
Smert’ Ioanna Groznago, tragediia v piati deistviiakh [The Death of Ivan the Terrible,...
St Petersburg, Naval Ministry Press, 1866.
First edition: the first in the great trilogy of plays by the foremost Russian historical dramatist. It was translated into English verse, ‘with the author’s permission’, in 1869.
£2000
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ROZENGEIM, Mikhail Pavlovich.
Stikhotvoreniia [Poems] …
St Petersburg, Artillery Department Press, 1858.
First edition of Rozengeim’s first book, very rare, a collection of seventy-six poems of patriotic martial mood.
£2000
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EHRENBURG, Ilya Grigorievich.
Огонь [‘Ogon’; ‘Fire’].
[Gomel,] “Veka i Dni”, 1919.
First edition of this collection of poems, with a long signed presentation inscription in Russian on title-page to the actress Varvara Alekseeva-Meskhieva in pencil, covering the title-page: ‘To dear Varvara Vladimirovna Alekseeva-Meskhieva, from the heart, Ehrenburg. On the eve of departure...
£2000
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LESSING, Gotthold Ephraim, and Viktor KRYLOV (translator).
Natan mudryi. Dramaticheskoe stikhotvorenie … perevod...
St Petersburg, Stasiulevich, 1875.
First edition in Russian of Lessing’s Nathan der Weise, very rare.
£2000
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DVIGUBSKII, Ivan Alekseevich.
Opyt estestvennoi istorii vsekh zhivotnykh Rossiiskoi Imperii … S izobrazheniiami zhivotnykh. [Fly-title:]...
Moscow, University Press, 1831.
First edition, rare, one of a series of six works on the flora and fauna of the Russian Empire, published 1829–1833 under the same general title. The present volume covers molluscs, including cephalopods and gastropods.
£2000
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GRIGOROVICH, Dmitrii Vasil’evich.
Povesti i razskazy … Chast’ pervaia [– shestaia] [Stories and tales. Part I [– VI]].
Moscow, E. Barfknekht, 1858, & V. Grachev, 1859.
First collected edition of Grigorovich’s fiction, including the important stories Derevnia (The Village, 1846), Anton Goremyka (1847), Rybaki (The Fishermen, 1853) and Shkola gostepriimstva (The School of Hospitality, 1855).
£2000
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‘ALEICHEM, Sholem’, pseud. [Solomon Naumovich RABINOVICH].
Sholom Aleikhem. Perevod s evreiskago S. Orlonskoi. Za sovetom....
St Petersburg, M.G. Kornfel’d, 1911.
Very rare first edition in Russian of three humorous stories by the ‘Jewish Mark Twain’, the Ukrainian-born author and playwright Sholem Aleichem, now probably best remembered through the musical based on his stories, Fiddler on the Roof.
£2000