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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MESHCHERSKY, Elim Petrovich, Prince.
Les roses noires …
Paris, Amyot, 1845.
Scarce first edition of this anthology of French verse by Meshchersky, posthumously brought to press by his mother and friends, publishing – for the first time – Victor Hugo’s letter of condolence to the prince's mother.
£400
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MILHAUD, Darius.
Le boeuf sur le toit, ou The nothing doing bar. Farce imaginée et réglée par Jean Cocteau – costumes de G....
Paris, Editions de la Sirène, 1920.
First edition of Milhaud’s Le boeuf sur le toit, Op. 58 (The ox on the roof, or The nothing-doing bar), a surrealist ballet-farce which became extremely popular in 1920s Paris.
£2400
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MILHAUD, Darius, and Stéphane MALLARMÉ.
Deux petits airs …
[Paris, Éditions de la nouvelle revue française, 1921.]
First edition of Milhaud’s polytonal musical setting of two poems by Mallarmé, published as a New Year supplement for La revue musicale.
£750
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MILTON, John, and Manuel ALTOLAGUIRRE, translator.
Fragmento de El Paraíso perdido. Traducción y nota de Manuel...
Madrid, Cruz y Raya, 1935.
A rare off-print from Cruz y Raya, the periodical edited by José Bergamín. This is the first appearance in print of Altolaguirre’s translation from Book II of Milton’s Paradise Lost.
£150
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MONTERO LACASA, José.
Prototipos Bonaerenses. Ilustraciones del Autor.
[Buenos Aires,] Carlos y Roberto Nale, Editores, [1954.]
First edition of a collection of short stories of gaucho life, with atmospheric illustrations by the author. The title-verso advertises translations of the work into English and German, but we can find no evidence they were ever published.
£325
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MORENO VILLA, José.
Carambas. (I.a serie [– 3.a serie]).
Madrid, Ediciones Posibles, 1931.
First edition of the complete series of Moreno Villa’s Carambas.
£450
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MOROZOV, Mikhail Mikhailovich.
O’tao. Drama v 2-kh deistviiakh [Drama in Two Acts].
Moscow, Sozvezdie, 1921.
First edition of a short play, set in Japan, by the Shakespeare scholar and translator M.M. Morozov (1897–1952). It was premiered on 15 June 1921.
£100
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MOROZOV, Nikolai Aleksandrovich.
Zvezdnyia pesni … [Celestial Songs].
Moscow, “Zadruga”, 1920.
First published in 1910, this second, enlarged edition is the ‘first complete edition’ of Morozov’s poetry, bringing the collection up-to-date (i.e. 1919). We offer volume I; a second appeared in 1921.
£120
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MUSIL, Robert.
Vinzenz und die Freundin bedeutender Männer. Posse in drei Akten.
Berlin, Ernst Rowohlt Verlag, 1924.
Rare first edition of Musil’s early farce, featuring an abduction, extramarital affairs, and a staged murder, an important precursor to his most famous work, the unfinished modernist novel Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (The Man without Qualities).
£500
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MUSSET, Alfred de, and Nikolai Porfir’evich GREKOV, translator.
Rolla, poema … perevod N.P. Grekova [Rolla,...
Moscow, F.B. Miller, 1864.
First edition in Russian of Musset’s Rolla (1833), a poetic reinterpretation of the Don Juan myth, translated by the poet Nikolai Porfir’evich Grekov (1810–1866).
£1750
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[NAPOLEONIC ITALY.]
Alla società delle gentilissime signore di Moncalieri dilettanti del giuoco del tavolazzo. Sonetto bernesco-morale...
Turin, Giacomo Fea, 1799.
An unrecorded sonnet addressed to the to the female players of tavolazzo – a Piedmontese sport along the lines of target shooting – at the Society of the Gentlewomen of Moncalieri; the rules of the sport would be formally laid out in 1780.
£375
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NERVAL, Gérard de.
Lorely, souvenirs d’Allemagne.
Paris, D. Giraud et J. Dagneau, 1852.
First edition, second issue, of a collection of Nerval’s writings on Germany. German Romanticism had a great influence on Nerval, and he was drawn to the country, visiting it seven times. At the age of 20, he published a translation of Faust which Goethe himself praised. Lorely opens with a long preface...
£800
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NEZVAL, Vítězslav.
Veliký Orloj [The Great Clock].
Prague, Fr. Borový, 1949.
First edition, a lengthy collection of poems inscribed by Nezval to his sisters and dated 11/4/1949.
£450
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NICOLAI, [Christoph] Friedrich.
The Life and Opinions of Sebaldus Nothanker. Translated from the German … by Thomas Dutton,...
London: Printed by C. Lowndes, and sold by H.D. Symonds, 1798.
First edition in English, very scarce, of Nicolai’s Das Leben und die Meinungen des Herrn Magister Sebaldus Nothanker (1773–6), ‘probably the literary bestseller of the German Enlightenment’ (Selwyn), translated into many languages and much re-printed. It is sometimes considered...
£2750
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[NUPTIALIA.]
Per le Faustissime Nozze del Nobile Signor Bartolomeo Grillenzoni di Carpi colla Nobile Signora Contessa Luigia Giacobazzi...
Guastalla, ‘Nella Regio-Ducale Stamperia di Salvatore Costa e Comp.’, 1791.
Seemingly unrecorded, provincially printed sonnets written to mark the marriage of Bartolomeo Grillenzoni and Luigia Gioacobazzi, dedicated to the father of the groom.
£250
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[NUPTIALIA.]
Bartolomeo MOLAJONI. Alla neogama donzella Marianna Molajoni negli Sforza, Bartolomeo Molajoni germano dirigge il...
Viterbo, brothers Poggiarelli, 1811.
Seemingly unrecorded sonnet addressed to the newlywed Marianna Molajoni by her brother Bartolomeo and dedicated to the sottoprefetto of Viterbo, Giulio Zelli Pazzaglia.
£275
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[OCCUPIED FRANCE]
Finis les mauvais jours! Papa gagne de l’argent en Allemagne! [The bad days are over! Daddy is earning money...
[Paris], Office de Répartition de l´Affichage, 1943.
Rare, encouraging the voluntary relocation of French workers from impoverished and semi-starved France to Germany factories.
£300
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OHNET, Georges; Lady GODOLPHIN OSBORNE, translator.
The Battles of Life. The Ironmaster. From the French of Georges...
Authorized Translation … London, Wyman & Sons … 1884.
First edition in English of this bestselling novel intended for a female readership, translated from the French by Lady William Godolphin Osborne, printed amidst the translator’s contentious copyright lawsuit against the publisher Henry Vizetelly, who had issued a rival translation in the same year.
£450
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OLESHA, Iurii Karlovich.
Zavist’. Roman, s risunkami Natana Al’tman [Envy. A novel, with drawings by Nathan Altman].
Moscow-Leningrad, “Zemlia Fabrika, [1928].
First edition of this famous short satirical novel which ‘catapulted Olesha into the first rank of Soviet writers’ (Terras). It was fêted by both Soviet and émigré critics and established the young writer’s reputation almost overnight. Olesha later adapted it as a play, Zagovor...
£3000
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OLESHA, Iurii Karlovich.
Zapiski pisatelia [Notes of a writer].
Moscow, [“Ogonek” for] Journalists Union, 1931.
Apparent first edition of Olesha’s autobiographical sketch.
£150