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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. [EL CID.] CHUDINOV, Aleksandr, translator.

    Poema i izbrannye romansy o Side v perevodakh russkikh pisatelei. Ispanskii narodnyi...

    St Petersburg, Glazunov, 1897.

    First edition of a prose translation into Russian of Cantar de mio Cid, preceded only by a ‘short retelling’ of 1864 by Fyodor Buslaev.

    £1250

  2. 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

  3. 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

  4. 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

  5. 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.

    £1100

  6. 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

  7. 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

  8. [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

  9. 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

  10. 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

  11. 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

  12. 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

  13. 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

  14. GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ, Gabriel.

    Cent anys de solitud.

    Barcelona, Edhasa, 1970.

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

    £150

  15. 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

  16. 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

  17. 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

  18. [GOETHE.] 

    REICHARDT, Johann Friedrich.  Goethe’s Lieder, Oden, Balladen und Romanzen mit Musik von J.F. Reichardt.  Erste...

    Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, [1809–11]. 

    Very rare first complete edition of Reichardt’s musical settings of Goethe’s poetry, comprising 128 settings of which thirty-nine appear here for the first time. 

    £6500

  19. [GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von.] ECKERMANN, Johann Peter, and Dmitry Vasilievich AVERKIEV (translator).

    Razgovory Gete...

    St Petersburg, A.S. Suvorin, 1891.

    Rare first edition in Russian of Eckermann’s famous Gespräche mit Goethe (1836/48); a second edition followed in 1905.

    £1500

  20. GOETHE, Johan Wolfgang von; Boris Leonidovich PASTERNAK, translator. 

    Тайны [Tainy; ‘Die Geheimnisse’ or ‘The...

    Moscow, Izdatel’stvo Sovremennik, 1922. 

    First and only edition, very rare, of Pasternak’s early translation of Goethe’s epic fragment Die Geheimnisse (The Mysteries); with a long introductory note by Professor Grigorii Rachinskii.

    £1200