First edition of Kundera’s first novel, The Joke, which gives a satirical account of the political atmosphere in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s.

It tells the story of a young Communist whose life is ruined because of a harmless, joking reference to Trotsky in a postcard to his girlfriend. The Joke, together with all Kundera’s books, was banned after the Soviet invasion in 1968. A film adaptation by Jaromil Jireš with Kundera’s approval, also 1968, was similarly banned.

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KOROLENKO, Vladimir Galaktionovich.

Dom No. 13-yi. Epizod iz Kishinevskago Pogroma [House No. 13. An episode from the Kishinev Pogrom].

First edition printed in Berlin (first, London 1903) of Korolenko’s description of the Kishinev Pogrom of 1903, in which he denounces anti-Semitism and religious persecution. The work was prohibited by the Russian censor and had to be published abroad.

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FIRST BOOK HERBERT, Zbigniew.

Struna Światła [String of light].

Rare first edition of the influential Polish poet, playwright and essayist’s first book, a collection of forty poems printed in an edition of 1205 copies under the title String of light.

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