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.
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IVANOV, Georgii Vladimirovich.
Lampada. Sobranie stikhotvorenii, Kniga pervaia [The icon-lamp. Collected poems. Book one (All...
Petrograd, [“Mysl’”], 1922.
First edition of Ivanov’s last collection of poems before his emigration.
£300
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IVANOV, Viacheslav Ivanovich.
Mladenchestvo [Infancy].
St Petersburg, “Alkonost”, 1918.
First edition. The poet, translator, critic and scholar Vyacheslav Ivanov (1866–1949) was one of the leaders of the Symbolist movement and its principal theorist.
£600
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IVANOV, Viacheslav Ivanovich.
Prometei. Tragediia [Prometheus. A tragedy].
St Petersburg, “Alkonost”, 1919.
First edition of Ivanov’s dramatic poem Prometheus, which follows the form of Greek tragedy. The plot is a restatement of classical myth in terms of Ivanov’s Neoplatonic philosophy.
£250
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IVANOV, Vsevolod Viacheslavovich, and Viktor Borisovich SHKLOVSKII.
Iprit. Roman. Vypusk I [– IX] [Mustard Gas. A novel....
Moscow, Gosizdat, [1925].
First edition, a complete set of a rare satirical science fiction novel, issued serially.
£2500
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JABÈS, Edmond.
Trois filles de mon quartier. [Paris], G. L.
M., [1948].
First edition: one of 340 numbered copies, of which this is one of 300 on Alfama.
£350
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JABÈS, Edmond.
Le Livre des Questions.
[Paris], Gallimard, [1963].
First edition. This is the first of what was to become a series of seven books under this title published between 1963 and 1973: ‘the centrepiece of Jabès’s oeuvre’ (Stoddard). 20 numbered copies were printed on pur fil; ours is one of the unnumbered copies on ordinary paper.
£300
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JABÈS, Edmond.
El, Ou le dernier livre.
[Paris], Gallimard, [1973].
First edition, one of 40 numbered copies on vélin pur fil.
£300
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JABÈS, Edmond.
Le Livre des ressemblances.
[Paris], Gallimard, [1976].
First edition, one of 20 numbered copies on vélin d’Arches Arjomari Prioux.
£300
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JABÈS, Edmond.
L’Obscurité potable.
[Paris], G.L.M., 1936.
Rare first edition of this early collection of poems, published when Jabès was just 24: one of a limited edition of 212 copies, of which this is one of 12 on Hollande Pannekeok.
£750
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JABÈS, Edmond.
Trois filles de mon quartier.
[Paris], G. L. M., [1948].
First edition: one of 340 numbered copies, of which this is one of 15 on vélin du Marais.
£550
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JABÈS, Edmond.
La clef de voûte.
[Paris], G.L.M., [1950].
First edition: one of 400 numbered copies, of which this is one of 20 on vélin du Marais.
£550
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JABÈS, Edmond.
Yaël.
[Paris], Gallimard, [1967].
First edition, one of 30 numbered copies on vélin pur fil.
£500
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JABÈS, Edmond.
Les Pieds en l’Air. Poèmes précedés d’une lettre de Max Jacob. Couverture et dessins de Mayo.
Cairo – Alexandria, “La Semaine Égyptienne”, [1934].
First edition. One of 200 unnumbered copies on papier bouffant, part of a total edition of 373 copies. ‘… The Cairo/Alexandria journal La Semaine Égyptienne became Jabès’s publisher with Maman in 1932 and Les Pieds en l’air and Arches poétiques in 1934 and...
£450
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JAYADEVA, and Friedrich MAJER (translator).
Gita-Govinda, ein Indisches Singspiel ... aus der Ursprache ins Englische...
Weimar, Landes-Industrie-Comptoir, 1802.
First and only separate edition of this uncommon German translation of Gita Govinda, a ‘devoutly erotic poem of the twelfth-century Bengali poet Jayadeva’ (ODNB).
£475
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JIMÉNEZ, Juan Ramón.
Pastorales. La tristeza del campo – El valle – La estrella del pastor – 1905.
Madrid, Biblioteca Renacimiento, 1911.
First edition: a collection of poems from Jiménez’s first period.
£650
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JUSSIEU, Laurent Pierre de.
Antoine et Maurice. Ouvrage qui a obtenu le prix proposé par la Société Royale pour l’amélioration...
Paris, L. Colas, 1821.
First edition, rare, of this unsurprisingly moralising novel by the writer, geologist, and natural historian Laurent Pierre de Jussieu (1792-1866), written in response to a competition held by the Royal Society of the Improvement of Prisons to find the best book to circulate amongst inmates.
£250
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[JUVENILIA.]
Racconti per gli adolescenti. Con tavole miniate.
Trieste, ‘Sezione Letterario-Artistica del Lloyd Austriaco’, 1857.
First and only edition, extremely rare, of these cautionary tales for adolescents, featuring inter alia debates among children on the ethics of taxidermy, a brawl in Latin lessons, arrests for embezzlement, and the unjust incarceration of a schoolboy.
£350
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KAFKA, Franz.
Ein Landarzt and Der Mord [in Die Neue Dichtung. Ein Almanach].
Leipzig, Kurt Wolff, 1918.
First edition, containing the first appearance in print of Kafka’s Ein Landarzt and Der Mord (later Ein Brudermord), both of which were published in the collection Ein Landarzt the following year, with significant textual differences. This important expressionist anthology also includes contributions...
£400
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KAFKA, Franz.
In der Strafkolonie.
Leipzig, Kurt Wolff, 1919.
First edition, one of 1000 copies printed, of Kafka’s story In the Penal Colony.
£5500