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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. 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

  2. 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

  3. JABÈS, Edmond.

    Yaël.

    [Paris], Gallimard, [1967].

    First edition, one of 30 numbered copies on vélin pur fil.

    £500

  4. JABÈS, Edmond.

    Aely.

    [Paris], Gallimard, [1972].

    First edition, one of the issue of ordinary paper.

    £100

  5. 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

  6. [KRÜDENER, Barbara Juliane de Vietinghoff, Freifrau von.]

    Valérie, ou Lettres de Gustave de Linar à Ernest de G… Tome premier...

    Paris, Henrichs, 1804.

    Rare first edition of Valérie, the famous semi-autobiographical Romantic novel by the Riga-born mystic and novelist Madame de Krüdener (1766–1824), whose influence as Tsar Alexander I’s spiritual adviser contributed directly to the formation of the Holy Alliance of 1815.

    £400

  7. [LOQUET, Marie-Françoise].

    Voyage de Sophie et d’Eulalie, au Palais du vrai bonheur; ouvrage pour servir de guide dans les voies...

    Paris, Charles-Pierre Berton, 1781.

    First edition of this rare utopian voyage to the Palace of True Happiness, written by a woman for a readership of women, our copy with the eighteenth-century ownership inscription of a female reader.

    £1500

  8. MAGRE, Maurice.

    Les trois métiers de Jeannet. Les bons tours d’Yan.

    Paris, Hachette (Bibliothèque des écoles et des familles), [s.d. (but 1911?)].

    Two scarce children’s stories, published as part of Hachette’s ‘Bibliothèque des écoles et des familles’.

    £125

  9. MARIVAUX, Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de.

    Le Paysan parvenu: or, the fortunate Peasant. Being Memoirs of the Life of Mr. ––––....

    London: Printed for John Brindley … Charles Corbett … and Richard Wellington … 1735

    First edition in English, originally published in French in the Hague in 1734-5. This is the second of the two important novels by Marivaux, which broke new ground in the art of writing fiction. ‘Where La Vie de Marianne belongs to the moralizing and sentimental romance tradition, Le Paysan...

    £650

  10. MARTIAL.

    Epigrammaton libri XIII. Ex fide vetustissimorum exemplarium, quanta fieri potuit cura vigilantiaque emendati.

    Paris, Jean Libert, 1612 [(colophon:) 1613].

    An uncommon small-format edition of Martial’s Epigrams, with early annotations marking passages used by the humanist poet Marot.

    £650

  11. MAURIAC, François.

    Le Noeud de Vipères. Roman.

    [Paris], Bernard Grasset, [1932].

    First edition, one of 112 numbered copies on vélin pur fil. Le Noeud de Vipères is one of the major French Catholic novels of the 20th century: a marital drama, depicting an old lawyer's rancour toward his family, his passion for money, and his final conversion. ‘Written shortly after the resolution...

    £550

  12. MÉRIMÉE, Prosper.

    La Chambre bleue. Nouvelle dédiée à Madame de la Rhune.

    Brussels, Librairie de la Place de la Monnaie, 1872.

    Very rare first procurable edition of Mérimée’s novella La Chambre bleue, one of 129 copies printed. The first edition (‘Biarritz, 1866’ = Paris, Jules Claye, 1871) was published in only three copies.

    £500

  13. MESHCHERSKII, Elim Petrovich.

    Les boréales par B. de G. et le prince Elim Mestscherski …

    Paris, Bellizard, Dufour et Cie, 1839.

    First edition of a rare French anthology of Russian poets, including early translations of six poems by Pushkin.

    £800

  14. 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

  15. 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

  16. 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

  17. 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

  18. 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

  19. PARADIN, Guillaume.

    Gulielmi Paradini Anchemani Epigrammata ...

    Lyons, Ant. Gryphius, 1581.

    First and only edition of this French historian’s poetry including verses about or addressed to Ronsard, Pontus de Tyard, Claude Rouillet, and the Lyons printers Sébastien and Antoine Gryphe, and Jean de Tournes.

    £950

  20. PASSI, Carlo.

    La selva di varia istoria … la quale avanti andava attorno stampata sotto nome finto di Annotationi dell’Infortunio,...

    Venice, Altobello Salicato, 1572.

    An unsophisticated copy of Passi and Ruscelli’s elaborations and explanations of Paolo Giovio’s history of his own time, bound in contemporary limp vellum reusing manuscript waste.

    £500