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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. DVIGUBSKII, Ivan Alekseevich.

    Opyt estestvennoi istorii vsekh zhivotnykh Rossiiskoi Imperii … S izobrazheniiami zhivotnykh. [Fly-title:]...

    Moscow, University Press, 1831

    First edition, rare, one of a series of six works on the flora and fauna of the Russian Empire, published 1829-1833 under the same general title. The present volume covers molluscs, including cephalopods and gastropods.

    £2000

  2. DZHEMBULAT, E.

    Krai ottsov [Land of the fathers].

    Berlin, Parabola, [1934?].

    First edition: a collection of poems.

    £100

  3. [ERENBBURG, BAL’MONT, BLOK, LERMONTOV, PUSHKIN, TOLSTOY, TURGENEV, et al.]

    Izbrannye stikhi russkikh poetov. Seriia sbornikov...

    [St Petersburg, Stasiulevich,] 1914.

    First edition of a patriotic anthology of poems on the theme of ‘Russia’, organised chronologically from Odoevsky to Kliuev. The theme is religiously adhered to, with contributions from both dead and living authors, including, as well as those listed above, Aksakov, Bely, Soloviev, Fofanov, Sologub,...

    £250

  4. [ERENBURG, GUMILEV, MANDELSHTAM, et al, translators].

    Poety frantsuzskogo vozrozhdeniia, antologiia [Poets of the French Renaissance,...

    Leningrad, Goslitizdat, 1938

    First edition of a rare anthology of translations from Villon, Marot, Ronsard, Du Bellay, and others. Two of the Villon translations are attributed in the index to Mandelshtam, but are in fact by Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev (1886-1921), husband of Anna Akhmatova, who had been arrested and executed for...

    £1750

  5. ERNST, Max.

    Une Semaine de Bonté ou les sept éléments capitaux. Roman. Premier [–Dernier] Cahier …

    Paris, Éditions Jeanne Bucher, 1934.

    First edition, no. 706 of 800 copies on papier Navarre from a total edition of 816.

    £4500

  6. FAGNANI, Giovanni Marco. 

    De bello Arriano libri sex. 

    Milan, heirs of Pacifico da Ponte and Giovanni Battista Piccaglia, 1604. 

    First and only edition of the sole published work by the Italian nobleman Giovanni Marco Fagnani (1524–1609), an epic poem recounting Ambrose of Milan’s campaign against local Arians in late fourth-century Lombardy. 

    £900

  7. FEDIN, Konstantin Aleksandrovich.

    Sad [The Orchard].

    Petrograd, 1922.

    Rare first edition of Konstantin Fedin’s first book, a short story which was awarded first prize by the House of Writers. An old gardener watches sadly as the orchard he cared for and the manor house of the old owners are turned over to a Soviet orphanage and fall into neglect. In the end the gardener...

    £1100

  8. FEDIN, Konstantin Aleksandrovich.

    Goroda i gody. Roman [Cities and years. A novel].

    Leningrad, Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel’stvo, 1924.

    First edition of Fedin’s autobiographical first novel, Cities and Years, an intense exploration of war and its aftermath, and the role of the intelligentsia in the inevitable revolution looming over society. The cities of the title are Berlin and Moscow, and the years those of the First World War and...

    £1200

  9. FOIX, Josep Vicenç.

    Obres poètiques, amb un pròleg de l’autor.

    Barcelona, Edicions Nauta, 1964.

    First edition of this collected anthology of Foix’s poems and prose pieces, together with the first printing of Desa acquests llibres al calaix de baix. J. V. Foix is considered to be one of the most significant avant-garde writers in Catalan.

    £200

  10. FRICKER, Bernard.

    Autograph working manuscript of a collection of essays and pensées entitled ‘La Marche du Jeu’.

    Circa 1946-52.

    An extraordinary, unique production, with seven long, unpublished observational essays by Fricker on the post-war Parisian art world, including long discussions of the work of Francis Picabia, Marcel Duchamp, and Blaise Cendrars; assembled in hand-decorated chemises and a folding box designed...

    £6500

  11. [GARCÍA LORCA, Federico, et al.]

    Los Cuatro Vientos.

    Madrid, Febrero [–Junio], 1933.

    The complete run of this short-lived Madrid literary review, from February to June of 1933. It includes the first printing of Lorca’s Oda al Rey de Harlem, and the first published fragments of El Publico, and of works by Damaso Alonso (Una via lactea), Unamuno (Versos), Vicente Aleixandre (El Solitario,...

    £950

  12. GARCÍA LORCA, Federico.

    Bodas de sangre. Tragedia en 3 actos y 7 cuadros… Estrenada en Buenos Aires por la eminente actriz Lola...

    Buenos Aires, Teatro del Pueblo, November 1936.

    An early edition of Lorca’s Blood Wedding, published, shortly after the poet’s death, in Buenos Aires, where the play had enormous success with Lola Membrives playing the role of the mother.

    £300

  13. GARCÍA LORCA, Federico.

    Chant funèbre pour Ignacio Sanchez Mejias & Ode à Walt Whitman. Traduits par Rolland-Simon.

    [Paris], GLM, 1938.

    Rare first edition in French of Lorca’s Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejías: copy no. 2 of 20 printed on hollande pannekoek (first paper) of a total edition of 470.

    £500

  14. GARCÍA LORCA, Federico.

    Ode à Salvador Dalí. Texte espagnol & traduction par Louis Parrot & Paul Eluard.

    [Paris], GLM, [1938].

    First separate edition of Lorca’s Ode to Salvador Dalí, and first appearance in French, in a translation by the French surrealist poets Paul Eluard and Louis Parrot. The poem was first published in the original Spanish in April 1926 in the Revista de Occidente; a luxury edition to be published by...

    £600

  15. GARCIA LORCA, Federico.

    Cinq romances gitanes, texte espagnol et traduction par Guy Lévis-Mano.

    [Paris], GLM, [1939].

    First edition, one of 475 numbered copies, of translations into French by Guy Lévis-Mano of five poems from the Romancero gitano: ‘Saint Gabriel’, ‘La casada infiel’, ‘Romance sonámbulo’, ‘Romance de la Guardia Civil española’ and ‘Romance de la luna, luna’.

    £100

  16. GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ, Gabriel.

    Cent anys de solitud.

    Barcelona, Edhasa, 1970.

    First edition in Catalan, translated by Avellí Artís-Gener.

    £150

  17. GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ, Gabriel.

    ‘El Olor de la Guayaba.’ Conversaciones con Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza.

    Bogotá, La Oveja Negra, 1982.

    First edition, published simultaneously in Colombia, Spain and Mexico. A series of interviews with García Márquez in which he discusses his family, his friends, his enemies, his work, his views on politics, etc.

    £150

  18. GIONO, Jean.

    Colline.

    Paris, Bernard Grasset, Les Cahiers Verts, 1929.

    First edition of Giono’s first book; it forms the first part of his successful ‘Pan trilogy’ with Un de Baumugnes (1929) and Regain (1930).

    £450

  19. GIUSTI, Paolo Emilio.

    Magie. Preface de Jean Royère.

    Paris, Albert Messein, 1938.

    First edition of a rare work of verse and prose poetry; a presentation copy from the author ‘à son Eminence le Cardinal Mercier; hommage humble et respectueux d’un catholique italien; Paolo Giusti / Paris, Janvier 1938’.

    £350

  20. GLOBA, Andrei Pavlovich.

    Korabli izdaleka [Ships from Afar].

    Moscow & Petrograd, 1922.

    First edition, an early collection by Globa (1888–1964), a popular Soviet writer whose poetry became well known as song lyrics.

    £100