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.
  1. AKHMATOVA, Anna Andreevna, translator.

    Golosa poetov. Stikhi zarubezhnykh poetov...

    Moscow, “Progress”, 1965.

    First edition: translations by Akhmatova...

    £450

  2. ALBERTI, Leon Battista.

    El Momo. La moral e muy graciosa historia...

    Alcalá de Henares, Joan Mey Flandro, 1553.

    First edition in Spanish of Alberti’s...

    £3800

  3. ALBERTI, Rafael.

    Cal y canto.

    Madrid, Revista de Occidente, [1929].

    First edition of Alberti’s fourth collection...

    £1100

  4. ALBERTI, Rafael.

    13 Bandas y 48 estrellas. Poema del Mar Caribe.

    Madrid, Manuel Altolaguirre, 1936.

    First edition. ‘The thirteen poems collected...

    £650

  5. ALBERTI, Rafael.

    De los Alamos y los sauces.

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

    First edition of this collection of poems:...

    £400

  6. 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

  7. ALEIXANDRE, Vicente.

    Historia del Corazón.

    Madrid, Espasa-Calpe, 1954.

    First edition of this important work by...

    £300

  8. ALEKSANDROVA, Zinaida and Dmitry GORLOV.

    Мишкины соседи [Little...

    Moscow, VLKSM Izdatelstvo Detskoi Literaturi,...

    First edition. A very nice copy...

    £350

  9. ALMEIDA, Theodoro de.

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

    Lisbon, Antonio Rodrigues Galhardo, 1803.

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

    £300

  10. [ALTOLAGUIRRE, Manuel, translator.] MILTON, John.

    Fragmento de El Paraíso perdido. Traducción...

    Madrid, Cruz y Raya, 1935.

    A rare off-print from Cruz y Raya,...

    £150

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

    Teatro (El Convidado de piedra. Festin...

    Barcelona, Editado por la Asociación...

    First edition: Altolaguirre’s translation...

    £300

  12. ANDREEV, Leonid Nikolaevich.

    Tsar Golod. Predstavlenie v piati kartinakh...

    [St Petersburg,] ‘Shipovnik’, 1908.

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

    £800

  13. ANSELMI, Giorgio, the younger

    Georgii Anselmi nepotis Epigrammaton libri...

    Venice, Maffeo Pasini, September 1528. 

    The definitive edition of the epigrams...

    £875

  14. APUKHTIN, Aleksei Nikolaevich.

    Stikhotvoreniia [Poems].

    St Petersburg, F. S. Sushchinsky, 1886.

    First edition of Apukhtin’s first collection...

    £750

  15. ARNIGIO, Bartolomeo. 

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

    Brescia, Giovanni Battista Bozzola, 1566. 

    First edition of Bartolomeo Arnigio’s...

    £1750

  16. AUDEN, Wystan Hugh, and Chester KALLMAN.

    The Magic Flute.

    London, Faber & Faber, [1957].

    First UK edition.

    £125

  17. AZAÏS, Gabriel, and Charles LABOR.

    Illustrated manuscript volume of poetry,...

    Béziers, c. 1836?

    An attractive presentation volume, with...

    £1750

  18. BABEL’, Isaak Emmanuilovich.

    Stat’i i materialy [Articles and materials].

    Leningrad, “Academia”, 1928

    First edition, from the ‘Academia’...

    £250

  19. BAL’MONT, Konstantin Dmitrievich, translator.

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

    Moscow, Mamontov, 1899

    First edition of Balmont’s translation...

    £900