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.

 
  1. ‘RIZZA, Zanclevio’, pseud. [i.e. Vincenzo LAZZARI GUERRA], editor and contributor.

    Piccola raccolta di composizioni satiriche...

    ‘Medina’ [i.e. Mori], ‘Frangipane...

    A very rare collection of satirical verses...

    £500

  2. ROBBE-GRILLET, Alain.

    Un Régicide.

    [Paris], Les Éditions de Minuit, [1978].

    First edition, one of 87 copies on Alfa...

    £300

  3. ROBBE-GRILLET, Alain.

    Souvenirs du Triangle d’Or.

    [Paris], Les Éditions de Minuit, [1978].

    First edition, one of 87 copies on Alfa...

    £350

  4. ROBBE-GRILLET, Alain.

    Topologie d’une cité fantôme.

    Paris, Éditions de Minuit, 1976.

    First edition: a kind of intellectual detective...

    £250

  5. ROMANOV, Panteleimon Sergeevich.

    Domovoi [The house-sprite].

    Moscow & Leningrad, “Zemlia i Fabrika”,...

    First edition, published in the ‘Worker-Peasant...

    £350

  6. ROMANOV, Panteleimon Sergeevich.

    Rus’ [Russia] …

    Moscow, M. & S. Sabashnikov, 1923–4.

    First edition of the first two parts of...

    £1200

  7. ROMANOV, Panteleimon Sergeevich.

    Pravo na zhizn’ ili problema bespartiinosti...

    [Moscow,] “Molodaia gvardiia”, 1927.

    First edition, containing three stories:...

    £400

  8. ROSINI, Giovanni. 

    Alla memoria di Maria Antinori vedova del...

    Pisa, Niccolò Capurro, 1852. 

    Scarce first and only edition of this poem...

    £275

  9. ROUVEYRE, André.

    Two typescript drafts of Apollinaire...

    c. 1950.

    The original corrected typescripts of André...

    £6500

  10. ROZENGEIM, Mikhail Pavlovich.

    Stikhotvoreniia [Poems] …

    St Petersburg, Artillery Department Press,...

    First edition of Rozengeim’s first book,...

    £2000

  11. RUCELLAI, Giovanni.

    Rosmunda. Tragedia … nuovamente ristampata.

    Florence, Filippo Giunta, 1593.

    Uncommon first edition of Donzellini’s...

    £650

  12. RÜCKERT, Friedrich.

    Die Weisheit des Brahmanen, ein Lehrgedicht...

    Leipzig, Weidmann’sche Buchhandlung, 1836-39.

    First edition of one of the most important...

    £500

  13. RUFIANDER, Fabius Jocosus, pseud. [Friedrich Julius ROTTMANN]. 

    Curiöse Inaugural Disputation von dem...

    ‘Teutschland, Gedruckt in denen Hundes-Tagen,...

    First edition, very rare, of this satirical...

    £675

  14. [RUSSIAN POETRY.]

    Izbrannye stikhi russkikh poetov. Seriia...

    [St Petersburg, Stasiulevich,] 1914.

    First edition of a patriotic anthology...

    £250

  15. SA‘DI, Abu ‘Abd Allah Musharrif al-Din (Adam OLEARIUS, translator). 

    Persianischer Rosenthal.  In welchen viel...

    Schleswig, Johann Holwein for Johann Nauman...

    Rare first illustrated edition, and the...

    £6500

  16. SALINAS, Pedro.

    El Contemplado. Tema con variaciones.

    Mexico, Nueva Fioresta en la Editorial...

    First edition: a set of fifteen poems written...

    £350

  17. SALTYKOV-SHCHEDRIN, Mikhail Yevgrafovich.

    Blagonamerennyia rechi. Tom I [– II]...

    St Petersburg, A.A. Kraevsky, 1876.

    First edition of these social and political...

    £1800

  18. SANFERMO CARIONI PEZZI, Rocco, Giovanni Battista GARAVETTA, and Francesco D’EMILEI.

    Lettera scritta nel castello di S. Felice...

    Verona, 1797.

    One of several editions published immediately...

    £300

  19. [SAURIN, Bernard-Joseph, attributed.]

    Le nouvel an, pöeme heroī-fou.

    ‘A Brochuro-manie, l’an du deluge...

    An extremely rare satirical tale of two...

    £950

  20. SCARRON, Paul. 

    Le Marquis ridicule, ou la comtesse faite...

    [Leiden, Elzevier], 1656. 

    First Elzevier editions, very rare, of...

    £800