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. ARNIGIO, Bartolomeo. 

    Rime dell’Arnigio per la ill[ustre] signora...

    Brescia, Giovanni Battista Bozzola, 1566. 

    First edition of Bartolomeo Arnigio’s...

    £1750

  2. BARTOLI, Adolfo.

    Scenari inediti della Commedia dell’arte....

    Florence, Sansoni, 1880.

    Rare first edition, one of only 350...

    £500

  3. [CARDUCCI, Giosuè, Olindo GUERRINI, et al., editors.] 

    Il Matto.  Anno I – Num. 1 [– Num. 13;...

    Bologna, 19 April [– 29 June] 1874. 

    Very rare complete run of this short-lived...

    £1000

  4. FAGNANI, Giovanni Marco. 

    De bello Arriano libri sex. 

    Milan, heirs of Pacifico da Ponte and...

    First and only edition of the sole published...

    £900

  5. GONZAGA, Curzio.

    Il Fido amante, poema eroico.

    Mantua, [(colophon:) Giacomo Ruffinello, 1582].

    First edition of an Italian Renaissance...

    £600

  6. [GUARINI, Giovanni Battista.]

    Il Pastor Fido.

    ‘In Parigi, appresso Tomaso Iolly, 1706’.

    Scarce Parisian edition of Guarini’s...

    £175

  7. [JUVENILIA.] 

    Racconti per gli adolescenti.  Con tavole...

    Trieste, ‘Sezione Letterario-Artistica...

    First and only edition, extremely rare,...

    £350

  8. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    Ezra Pound, un saggio e tre disegni.

    Milan, all’insegna del pesce d’oro...

    First edition, an hors serie copy...

    £75

  9. [MALTA.] 

    Eruditissima istoria dell’assedio fatto...

    Naples, [c. 1800?]. 

    Scarce poem on the 1565 Great Siege...

    £650

  10. MELECRINIS, Maria Teresa. 

    Le voci del cuore a Maria Teresa Melecrinis...

    Naples, stamperia dell' Iride, 1846. 

    Very rare collection of odes and sonnets...

    £175

  11. MOLAJONI, Bartolomeo. 

    Alla neogama donzella Marianna Molajoni...

    Viterbo, brothers Poggiarelli, 1811. 

    Seemingly unrecorded sonnet addressed...

    £275

  12. [NAPOLEONIC ITALY.] 

    Alla società delle gentilissime signore...

    Turin, Giacomo Fea, 1799.

    An unrecorded sonnet addressed to the...

    £375

  13. PAGLIARANI, Elio.

    Inventario privato. Prefazione di Giacomo...

    [Milan], Veronelli, [1959].

    First edition of the second published collection...

    £350

  14. PAZZI, Antonio de, and Torquato TASSO. 

    Stanze inedite di Antonio de Pazzi e di...

    Venice, Picotti, 1810.

    Scarce first edition of verses ‘in...

    £200

  15. PIEROTTI, A. 

    Il cervello e la difesa delle donne sestine...

    Florence, N. Fabbrini, 1842. 

    First and only edition, very rare, of...

    £375

  16. [PIRANDELLO, Luigi.]

    LO VECCHIO MUSTI, Manlio. Bibliografia...

    Verona, Mondadori, 1937.

    First edition of this authoritative bibliography...

    £100

  17. [POETRY.] 

    ‘Trattato della [poesia Toscana]’. 

    [Asti?, 1780-1782.] 

    A manuscript treatise on the method...

    £750

  18. [POUND, Ezra.]

    CONTINO, Vittorugo, photographer....

    Venice, Gianfranco Ivancich, [1970?].

    Prospectus in English for Gallup B100,...

    £10

  19. POUND, Ezra, and Giovanni GIUDICI, translator.

    H.S. Mauberley, tradotto di Giovanni Giudici...

    Milan, all’insegna del pesce d’oro...

    First edition, no. 141 of 1000 copies,...

    £100

  20. ROSINI, Giovanni. 

    Alla memoria di Maria Antinori vedova del...

    Pisa, Niccolò Capurro, 1852. 

    Scarce first and only edition of this...

    £275