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.

    Голоса поэтов. Стихи зарубежных...

    Moscow, “Progress”, 1965.

    First edition of Akhmatova’s translations...

    £450

  2. ALBERTI, Rafael.

    13 Bandas y 48 estrellas. Poema del Mar Caribe.

    Madrid, Manuel Altolaguirre, 1936.

    First edition. ‘The thirteen poems collected...

    £650

  3. ALBERTI, Rafael.

    Cal y canto.

    Madrid, Revista de Occidente, [1929].

    First edition of Alberti’s fourth...

    £1100

  4. ALBERTI, Rafael.

    De los Alamos y los sauces.

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

    First edition of this collection of...

    £400

  5. ‘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...

    £2000

  6. ALEIXANDRE, Vicente.

    Historia del Corazón.

    Madrid, Espasa-Calpe, 1954.

    First edition of this important work...

    £300

  7. ALEKSANDROVA, Zinaida and Dmitry GORLOV.

    Мишкины соседи [Little...

    Moscow, VLKSM Izdatelstvo Detskoi Literaturi,...

    First edition. A very nice copy...

    £350

  8. [ALMANACK.]

    Al’manakh dlia vsekh. Kniga vtoraia [Almanack...

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

    First edition, rare, the second of two...

    £200

  9. ALMEIDA, Theodoro de.

    Lisboa destruida poema, author o P. Theodoro...

    Lisbon, Antonio Rodrigues Galhardo, 1803.

    First edition of this poem in six cantos,...

    £175

  10. ANDREEV, Leonid Nikolaevich.

    Tsar Golod. Predstavlenie v piati kartinakh...

    [St Petersburg,] ‘Shipovnik’, 1908.

    First edition of this play by one of...

    £800

  11. APUKHTIN, Aleksei Nikolaevich.

    Stikhotvoreniia [Poems].

    St Petersburg, F.S. Sushchinsky, 1886.

    First edition of Apukhtin’s first...

    £750

  12. ARISTOPHANES.

    Aristophanis comicorum principis Comoediae...

    Venice, 1542 [colophon: apud D. Jacob...

    First collected Latin edition of Aristophanes,...

    £1200

  13. ARNIGIO, Bartolomeo. 

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

    Brescia, Giovanni Battista Bozzola, 1566. 

    First edition of Bartolomeo Arnigio’s...

    £1750

  14. ASCHEHOUG, Torkel Halvorsen.

    Social-økonomik: en videnskabelig fremstilling...

    Christiania, H. Aschehoug, 1903–1908.

    First edition of a systematic handbook...

    £350

  15. [ASSIGNAT DE CINQUANTE BAISERS.]

    Mémoire pour le Sieur Jean-Baptiste Cousot,...

    Chaumont, Cousot, c. 1822.

    First edition of this apparently unrecorded...

    £250

  16. AVGERINOS, Hypatios.

    Πονηµατα δραµατικα. [Ponemata...

    Trieste, Austrian Lloyd, 1849.

    Very rare first edition of Avgerinos’...

    £750

  17. AZAÏS, Gabriel, and Charles LABOR.

    Illustrated manuscript volume of poetry,...

    Béziers, c. 1836?

    An attractive presentation volume, with...

    £1750

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

    Castilla.

    Madrid, Revista de Archivos, 1912.

    First edition, an important collection...

    £450

  19. BABEL’, Isaak Emmanuilovich.

    ...

    Leningrad, “Academia”, 1928.

    First edition, from the ‘Academia’...

    £250