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.
-
RÜCKERT, Friedrich.
Die Weisheit des Brahmanen, ein Lehrgedicht in Bruchstücken. Erstes [– Sechstes] Bändchen.
Leipzig, Weidmann’sche Buchhandlung, 1836-39.
First edition of one of the most important poetical works by Rückert, here in the publisher’s attractive original paper wrappers. Rückert’s large output of poetry inspired many composers, among them Schubert (‘Du bist die Ruh’), Schumann (‘Widmung’), and Mahler (‘Kindertotenlieder’...
£500
-
RUFIANDER, Fabius Jocosus, pseud. [Friedrich Julius ROTTMANN].
Curiöse Inaugural Disputation von dem Recht / Natur /...
‘Teutschland, Gedruckt in denen Hundes-Tagen, 1716.’
First edition, very rare, of this satirical academic disputation on melancholy, dedicated to the author’s ‘unpleasant and universally despised’ peers in the hope of cheering them up (p. [4] trans.).
£675
-
[RUSSIAN POETRY.]
Izbrannye stikhi russkikh poetov. Seriia sbornikov po temam. Rossiia [Selections of verse by Russian poets....
[St Petersburg, Stasiulevich,] 1914.
First edition of a patriotic anthology of poems on the theme of ‘Russia’, organised chronologically from Odoevsky to Kliuev, including contributions from Ehrenburg, Bal’mont, Blok, Lermontov, Pushkin, Tolstoy, and Turgenev.
£250
-
SA‘DI, Abu ‘Abd Allah Musharrif al-Din (Adam OLEARIUS, translator).
Persianischer Rosenthal. In welchen viel lustige...
Schleswig, Johann Holwein for Johann Nauman in Hamburg, 1654.
Rare first illustrated edition, and the first edition translated by Olearius, of Sa‘di’s Gulistān or ‘Rose-garden’, with splendid engravings.
£6500
-
SALINAS, Pedro.
El Contemplado. Tema con variaciones.
Mexico, Nueva Fioresta en la Editorial Stylo, 1946.
First edition: a set of 15 poems written in Puerto Rico between 1943 and 1945, in which the poet addresses the sea he is watching. ‘… The speaker-poet’s search for key meanings in nature leads to the very process of its writing. As this process develops, the sea in turn moves from passive subject...
£350
-
SALINAS, Pedro.
El defensor.
Bogotá, Universidad Nacional, 1948.
First edition of this important collection of essays by one of the outstanding members of the Generación del 27. Salinas presents a series of five essays in defence of different aspects of language.
£550
-
SALINGER, J.D.
Povesti. Nad propast’iu vo rzhi [Catcher in the Rye]… Rasskazyi.
Moscow, Molodaya Gvardiya, 1965.
First printing in Russia and first Russian translation of Catcher in the Rye (1951), together with other works by Salinger which also appear here for the first time. The translation of Salinger’s classic novel was approved by the censor, as they considered Holden Caulfield’s dissolute coming-of-age...
£950
-
SALTYKOV-SHCHEDRIN, Mikhail Yevgrafovich.
Blagonamerennyia rechi. Tom I [– II] [Well-meaning speeches. Volume I [–II]].
St Petersburg, A.A. Kraevsky, 1876.
First edition of these social and political satires by the greatest satirist of nineteenth-century Russia. The title is ambiguous – the word ‘well-meaning’ was widely used by the administration to mean ‘loyal’, i.e. ‘politically reliable’.
£1800
-
SCARRON, Paul.
Le Marquis ridicule, ou la comtesse faite à la haste. Comedie … Suivant la copie imprimée a Paris.
[Leiden, Elzevier], 1656. [bound with:]
First Elzevier editions, very rare, of these two plays by Scarron, pirated after the text of the first editions printed in Paris. A finely bound volume with excellent Elzevierian provenance.
£800
-
SCHNITZLER, Jean-Henri.
Rostopchin i Kutuzov. Rossiia v 1812 godu. Perev. s predisloviem i primechaniiami A. El’nitskago [Rostopchin...
St. Petersburg, “Luch”, 1912
First edition in Russian of La Russie en 1812, Rostopchine et Koutousof (1863), a history of Russia during the Napoleonic wars. The generals Rostopchin and Kutuzov would appear as major characters in War and Peace (1865 7), and Schnitzler’s original appeared just as Tolstoy began work on his novel.
£300
-
SCHUBERT, Franz, composer.
A fine contemporary volume of ten works containing eighteen Lieder including his most famous...
Vienna, 1821-1833.
A rare collection of Schubert Lieder in a contemporary binding, apparently as retailed by the Czech music publisher Berra, including three first editions.
£7500
-
SELVINSKII, Il’ia Lvovich.
Rekordy [Records].
Moscow, “Uzel”, 1926.
First edition, of Ilya Selvinsky’s (1899–1968) first volume of verse, one of 700 copies.
£300
-
SELVINSKII, Ilia Lvovich.
Ulialaevshchina: epopeia [The Ulialaev uprising: an epic].
Moscow, Gosizdat “Khudozhestvennaia literatura”, 1935.
Fourth edition (first, 1927) of Sel’vinskii’s first and most successful verse epic. Ulialaevshchina describes the fortunes of a kulak, Ulialaev, ‘who seized an estate from its pre-Revolutionary owner and was later defeated in an anarchist rebellion by the Red Army. Selvinsky’s depictions are...
£100
-
SHAGINYAN, Marietta Sergeevna.
O blazhenstve imushchago: poeziia Z.N. Gippius [On the bliss of the propertied: the poetry of...
Moscow, “Al’tsiona”, [1912].
First edition, a critical essay by Shaginian published in the same year as Orientalia (advertised here), the collection of poetry that brought her fame.
£350
-
SHAGINYAN, Marietta Sergeevna.
Puteshestvie v Veimar [Journey to Weimar].
Moscow & Petrograd, Gosizdat, 1923.
First edition of Shaginyan’s account of a pilgrimage to Weimar, presented by the author ‘to the respected Vladimir Pavlovich Pirogov in dear memory’ (trans.).
£600
-
SHAGINYAN, Marietta Sergeevna.
Gëte [Goethe].
Moscow and Leningrad, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1950.
First edition of Marietta Sergeevna Shaginyan’s (1888–1982) scholarly work on Goethe, which particularly examines Russian (and Soviet) appreciations. The great German writer was Shaginyan’s (or Shaginian’s) idol, as attested by Puteshestvie v Veimar (Journey to Weimar).
£350
-
SHAKESPEARE, William, and Boris Leonidovich PASTERNAK, translator.
Otello, venetsianskii mavr. Perevod s angliiskogo...
Moscow, Ogiz, 1945.
First edition of Pasternak’s translation. ‘Pasternak was attached to Shakespeare for all his creative life. In his best early verse collection My Sister Life (pub. 1922), the poem “English Lessons” featured Desdemona and Ophelia “letting their passions slip from their shoulders...
£1000
-
SHAKESPEARE, William; Mihály VÖRÖSMARTY, translator.
Lear Király …
Pest, Landerer & Heckenastn, 1856.
First edition of the first translation of King Lear into Hungarian.
£950
-
SHELLEY, Percy Bysshe, and Konstantin Dmitrievich BALMONT, translator.
Sochineniia Shelli... Vypusk 7-i, Chenchi,...
Moscow, Mamontov, 1899.
First edition of Balmont’s translation of Shelley’s The Cenci, volume 7 of his verse translation of the complete works of Shelley into Russian.
£900
-
[SHERSHENEVICH, Vadim Gabrielevich, translator and editor.] VILDRAC, Charles, and Georges DUHAMEL.
Teoriia svobodnogo...
Moscow, “Imazhinisty”, 1920.
First edition of Shershenevich’s translation of Vildrac and Duhamel’s Notes sur la technique poétique (1910), ‘which served as the basis for Shershenevich’s theory of the “vers libre of images,” in his imagist book, 2 × 2 = 5 (1920)’ (Terras).
£150