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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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  1. AKHMATOVA, Anna Andreevna, translator.

    Голоса поэтов. Стихи зарубежных поэтов в переводе...

    Moscow, “Progress”, 1965.

    First edition of Akhmatova’s translations of a selection of pieces by Polish, Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian, Yugoslavian, Romanian, Norwegian, and Indian poets.

    £450

  2. ALBERTI, Rafael.

    Cal y canto.

    Madrid, Revista de Occidente, [1929].

    First edition of Alberti’s fourth collection of poems. Cal y canto occupies a central position in the poet’s work before the Spanish Civil War, introducing themes he was to return to again and again throughout his life.

    £1100

  3. ALBERTI, Rafael.

    13 Bandas y 48 estrellas. Poema del Mar Caribe.

    Madrid, Manuel Altolaguirre, 1936.

    First edition. ‘The thirteen poems collected in 13 bandas y 48 estrellas, first published in 1936 and later recollected in part 3 of De un momento a otro, are songs of protest against, and critical evaluations of, the role of “el imperialismo yanki”, “la diplomacia del horror”, and “la...

    £650

  4. ALBERTI, Rafael.

    De los Alamos y los sauces.

    [Buenos Aires], Ediciones del Angel Gulab, 1940.

    First edition of this collection of poems: one of 120 numbered copies on Hammermill paper, signed by Alberti, of a total edition of 425. No. III in the series Cancionero de la Sirena, edited by Angel Gulab.

    £400

  5. ‘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

  6. ALEIXANDRE, Vicente.

    Historia del Corazón.

    Madrid, Espasa-Calpe, 1954.

    First edition of this important work by the Nobel prize-winning poet Vicente Aleixandre (1898–1984).

    £300

  7. ALEKSANDROVA, Zinaida and Dmitry GORLOV.

    Мишкины соседи [Little Bear’s neighbours].

    Moscow, VLKSM Izdatelstvo Detskoi Literaturi, 1936.

    First edition. A very nice copy of this collection of verses for young children, composed by one of the most prolific Soviet children’s poets, and illustrated by one of the most prolific of Soviet children’s artists. The tales tell of the lives of a selection of farm and wild animals, including...

    £350

  8. [ALMANACK.]

    Al’manakh dlia vsekh. Kniga vtoraia [Almanack for all. Second book].

    St Petersburg, “Novyi zhurnal dlia vsekh”, 1911.

    First edition, rare, the second of two annual literary almanacks with this title, with poems by Blok, Gorodetsky and Kuzmin, and short fiction by Chulkov, Gusev, Count Aleksei Nikolaevich Tolstoy and Ivan Poroshin.

    £200

  9. ANDREEV, Leonid Nikolaevich.

    Tsar Golod. Predstavlenie v piati kartinakh s prologom [King Hunger. A play in five scenes with...

    [St Petersburg,] ‘Shipovnik’, 1908.

    First edition of this play by one of the most popular writers in Russia during the first decade of the twentieth century: Andreev’s fame ‘was almost on a par with that of Chekhov and Gorky. The fact remains that his talent and topical themes, his literary techniques combining tradition and...

    £800

  10. APUKHTIN, Aleksei Nikolaevich.

    Stikhotvoreniia [Poems].

    St Petersburg, F.S. Sushchinsky, 1886.

    First edition of Apukhtin’s first collection of poems, including works set to music by, among others, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Prokofiev.

    £750

  11. ARIOSTO, Ludovico.

    Delle Satire e rime … libri due.

    London, John Pickard, 1716.

    First edition with the annotations of Paolo Antonio Rolli (1687–1765), the celebrated émigré Italian poet who moved to London in 1716, became a private tutor, wrote libretti for Handel and others, and translated Paradise Lost into Italian. He also edited Italian classics that...

    £500

  12. ARMINESI, Rocco degli.

    Attila flagelum Dei, tradotto dalla vera cronica per Rocco degli Arminesi padovano. Ove si narra come detto...

    Venice, Omobon Bettanino, [mid-eighteenth century].

    Very rare eighteenth-century edition of a popular and best-selling poem on Attila the Hun.

    £600

  13. ARNIGIO, Bartolomeo. 

    Rime dell’Arnigio per la ill[ustre] signora Claudia Martinenga. 

    Brescia, Giovanni Battista Bozzola, 1566. 

    First edition of Bartolomeo Arnigio’s collection of poems addressed to Claudia Martinengo, wife to Ludovico Martinengo della Pallata, an important association copy presented by the author to fellow poet Antonio Beffa Negrini. 

    £1750

  14. ASCHEHOUG, Torkel Halvorsen.

    Social-økonomik: en videnskabelig fremstilling af det menneskelige samfunds økonomiske virksomhed.

    Christiania, H. Aschehoug, 1903–1908.

    First edition of a systematic handbook on economics written by the Norwegian lawyer, political scientist, politician, historian, and economist Torkel Halvorsen Aschehoug (1822–1909).

    £350

  15. AUBERY, Jean-Henri.

    D. Virgo Guarazonia. Scriptore reverendo patre, P. Ioanne Henrico Auberio Borbonio, religioso presbytero...

    Auch, Arnaud de Sainct Bonnet, 1650.

    A seemingly unrecorded (first?) edition of a remarkable neo-Latin poem on Our Lady of Garaison composed by the Jesuit priest Jean-Henri Aubery (1601–1652).

    £1250

  16. AZAÏS, Gabriel, and Charles LABOR.

    Illustrated manuscript volume of poetry, comprising ‘Vingt-six janvier 1836’ by...

    Béziers, not before 1836.

    A charming presentation volume, with French poems by the Occitan scholars Azaïs (1805–1888) and Labor (1813–1900), and fine vignette sketches.

    £1750

  17. AZORÍN, pseud. [José MARTINEZ RUIZ].

    Castilla.

    Madrid, Revista de Archivos, 1912.

    First edition, an important collection of essays attempting tocapture ‘una partícula del espiritú de Castilla’, by one of the leading members of the Generación del 1898. Subjects include railways, bulls, clouds …

    £450

  18. BABEL’, Isaak Emmanuilovich.

    Stat’i i materialy [Articles and materials].

    Leningrad, “Academia”, 1928.

    First edition, from the ‘Academia’ series ‘Masters of Contemporary Literature’, including an autobiographical sketch by Babel, and three biographical or critical essays by Nikolai Stepanov, P.I. Novitsky and G.A. Gukovsky, plus a list of Babel’s works. Other writers in the series included Zoshchenko,...

    £250

  19. BAL’MONT, Konstantin Dmitrievich, translator. CALDERÓN, Pedro.

    [Half-title:] Sochineniia Kal’derona perevod s ispanskago [The...

    [Moscow, M. and S. Sabashnikov, 1900-1902-1912].

    First edition of all three volumes of Balmont’s translations from Calderon, comprising: El purgatorio de San Patricia (volume I); La vida es sueño, La devoción de la cruz, El príncipe constante and Amar despues de la muerte (volume II); and El médico de su...

    £1800

  20. BAL’MONT, Konstantin Dmitrievich.

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

    [Berlin], “Slovo”, 1921.

    First edition: Bal’mont’s translations into Russian of a selection of poems by Rustaveli, Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Poe, Rossetti, Whitman, Tennyson, Goethe, Heine, Leopardi, Baudelaire, and others.

    £50