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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. KUZMIN, Mikhail Alekseevich.

    Lesok. Liricheskaia poema dlia muzyki s ob”iasnitel’noi prozoi v trekh chastiakh [The Grove....

    [Petrograd, “Neopalimaia kupina”, 1922].

    First edition, copy no. 1 of a numbered edition of 500 copies.

    £750

  2. LABORDE, Ernest.

    Vieilles maisons boutiques & paysages de Paris. Eaux fortes originales de Ernest Laborde. Presentées par Gustave...

    Paris, Jules Meynial, 1918 [1919].

    First edition, very rare: two series of twenty etchings each on the most picturesque houses and shops in Paris, produced between 1911 and 1918 by Ernest Laborde (1870–1935).

    £1950

  3. LAGERLÖF, Selma.

    Bannlyst. En berättelse.

    Stockholm, Albert Bonniers Förlag, [1918].

    First edition: Lagerlöf’s pacifist novel, The Outcast, published towards the end of 1918, in which she argues for a re-examination of the state of modern Western society.

    £100

  4. LANGE, Norah.

    45 Días y 30 marineros. Novela.

    Buenos Aires, Editorial Tor (Colección Cometa), 1933.

    First edition: Norah Lange’s second novel, which follows a 20-year old girl, Ingrid, the only woman on the ship, on a voyage from Buenos Aires to Oslo.

    £100

  5. LA SERRE, Jean-Puget de.

    Grab-Statt der weltlichen Ergötzlichkeiten, einstens in Französischer Sprache zubereitet … anjetzt...

    Regensburg, Johann Conrad Peetz und Bader, 1738.

    First edition in German of Tombeau des délices du monde, by the French dramatist and historian Jean-Puget de la Serre (1594–1665).

    £375

  6. LEBEDEV, V.P.

    175 godovshchina Pervago Kadetskago korpusa. 17 fevralia 1907 g. [175th Anniversary of the First Corps of Cadets,...

    [St Petersburg,] Press of the First Corps of Cadets, 1906.

    Only edition of this collection of poems commemorating the 175th anniversary of the First Corps of Cadets, set up under Anna Ivanovna. Each of the ten ‘scenes in verse’ is narrated by a cadet, once for each Tsar under which the Corps has served.

    £180

  7. LEONOV, Leonid Maksimovich.

    Petushikhinskii prolom [The Break-up of Petushikha].

    Moscow, M. & S. Shabashnikov, 1923.

    First edition of an early short story about the impact of the Revolution on the clergy and the peasantry.

    £300

  8. LEONOV, Leonid Maksimovich.

    Tuatamur.

    Moscow, M. & S. Sabashnikov, 1924.

    First edition: one of Leonov’s early stories, the tragic, sometimes savage tale of a Tartar khan who shares in the victory over the Russians at Kalka (1224, the first invasion of Russia by the Mongol hordes), only to lose his beloved Ytmar, the doomed warrior daughter of Genghiz Khan. The narrative...

    £450

  9. 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

  10. 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

  11. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    Ezra Pound, un saggio e tre disegni.

    Milan, all’insegna del pesce d’oro [Scheiwiller], 1958.

    First edition, an hors serie copy (from numbered edition of 1000), a translation by Pound’s daughter, Mary de Rachewiltz, of an essay that first appeared in Pound’s 65th birthday festschrift in 1950; this translation was published in part ‘to celebrate Ezra Pound’s return to Italy’.

    £75

  12. [LIDIN, Vladimir Germanovich, editor.]

    Literaturnaia Rossiia. Sbornik sovremennoi russkoi prozy pod redaktsiei Vl. Lidina...

    Moscow, “Novye vekhi”, 1924.

    First edition of an avant-garde collection of short stories and excerpts from novels, with autobiographical sketches and bibliographies by each of the twenty-eight contributors, all written especially for this collection.

    £1500

  13. LIVSHITS, Benedikt Konstantinovich.

    Krotonskii polden’ [High Noon at Kroton].

    Moscow, “Uzel”, 1928.

    First collected edition. Livshits’ fifth and final book of verse, after which he turned increasingly to translation work.

    £600

  14. [LOQUET, Marie-Françoise].

    Voyage de Sophie et d’Eulalie, au Palais du vrai bonheur; ouvrage pour servir de guide dans les voies...

    Paris, Charles-Pierre Berton, 1781.

    First edition of this rare utopian voyage written by a woman for a readership of women.

    £1500

  15. [LOUIS XIV.]

    L’oraison funebre de tres-haute, tres-excellente et tres-puissante princesse monarchie universelle. Prononcée le...

    ‘Cologne’, s.n., ‘1705’ [1704].

    Sole edition, very rare and virtually unstudied, of ‘one of the most curious and violent pamphlets published against Louis XIV’ (Pelissier, trans.).

    £1250

  16. LUNACHARKSII, Anatolii Vaslievich.

    Piat’ farsov dlia liubitelei [Five farces for amateurs].

    St Petersburg, “Shipovnik”, 1907.

    Very rare first edition of five early plays, written for amateur performance, but rarely staged: ‘Sverkhchelovek’ (Superman), ‘Esche skvernyi anekdot’ (Another nasty anecdote), ‘Beglyi politik’ (The fugitive politician), ‘Bomba’ (Bomb), and ‘Obshchestvo maloi skorosti’ (Low-speed...

    £500

  17. [LUNACHARSKII, Anatolii Vasilievich, and Sergei Mitrofanovich GORODETSKII, editors.]

    Styk. Pervyi sbornik stikhov Moskovskogo Tsekha...

    Moscow, Moscow Guild of Poets, 1925.

    First edition of an anthology edited by Lunacharsky and Gorodetsky, including poems by Pavel Antokolsky, Bryusov, Bely, Pasternak, Aleksandr Shiryaevet, Mikhail Zenkevich, and others. Pasternak’s contribution, ‘Spektorskii’, was first published complete in book form in 1931.

    £250

  18. MACHADO, Antonio.

    Juan de Mairena. Sentencias, donaires, apuntes y recuerdos de un profesor apócrifo.

    Madrid, Espasa-Calpe, 1936.

    First edition of this philosophical and poetic miscellany attributed to an apocryphal professor Juan de Mairena.

    £650

  19. MAGRE, Maurice.

    Les trois métiers de Jeannet. Les bons tours d’Yan.

    Paris, Hachette (Bibliothèque des écoles et des familles), [s.d. (but 1911?)].

    Two scarce children’s stories, published as part of Hachette’s ‘Bibliothèque des écoles et des familles’.

    £125

  20. MAINE DE BIRAN. [MARIE FRANÇOIS PIERRE GONTHIER DE BIRAN.]

    Influence de l’Habitude sur la Faculté de Penser.

    Paris, Henrichs, 1803.

    First edition of Maine de Biran’s first major work, in which he draws a distinction between what he calls passive habits, i.e. sensations and impressions which become dulled with repetition, and active habits, i.e. those which are conscious, and willed. “The effect of this, which was borne out by...

    £2000