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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OZEROV, Vladislav Aleksandrovich.
Sochineniia … Chast’ pervaia [–vtoraia]...
St Petersburg, Imperial Theatre, 1817 [-1816].
One of two rival collected editions published...
£1800
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KARAMZIN, Nikolai Mikhailovich.
Aglaja. Romantische und historische Erzählungen....
Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1819.
First appearance of a collection of eight...
£750
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[ST PETERSBURG SUBSCRIPTION LIBRARY.] HOLTEI, Karl Eduard von.
Lenore. Vaterländisches Schauspiel mit...
Berlin, Duncker and Humblot, 1829.
First edition of one of Holtei’s best-known...
£280
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DVIGUBSKY, Ivan Alekseevich.
Опытъ естественной исторіи...
Moscow, University Press, 1831.
First edition, rare, one of a series of...
£2000
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MESHCHERSKII, Elim Petrovich.
Les boréales par B. de G. et le prince...
Paris, Bellizard, Dufour et Cie, 1839.
First edition of a rare French anthology...
£800
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[PUSHKIN, Alexander.]
LÉNSTRÖM, Carl Julius. Alexander Puschkin....
Uppsala, Leffler och Sebell; 1841.
First edition, very rare, of a study of...
£350
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MESHCHERSKY, Elim Petrovich, Prince.
Les roses noires …
Paris, Amyot, 1845.
Scarce first edition of this anthology...
£400
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PUSHKIN, Aleksandr Sergeevich. DUPONT, H. (translator).
Oeuvres choisies... traduites pour la première...
St Petersburg, chez Fd. Bellizard et Cie;...
First collected edition of Pushkin in French,...
£2500
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OSTROVSKY, Aleksandr Nikolaevich.
Бѣдная Невѣста. Бѣдная...
Moscow, Stepanov, 1852.
First separate edition, rare, of the second...
£4000
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PISEMSKII, Aleksei Feofilaktovich.
Povesti i razskazy … v trekh chastiakh...
Moscow, Stepanova, 1853.
Very rare first collected edition of the...
£4800
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GOGOL’, Nikolai Vasil’evich, and Louis VIARDOT (translator).
Tarass Boulba… traduit du russe par Louis...
Paris, Librairie de L. Hachette et Cie, 1853.
First separate appearance of Gogol’s...
£250
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RADIUS, J.
S. C. de. Characteristic Features of Russian...
London, printed by Seyfang & Co. [for...
First and only edition. This little book...
£325
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PISEMSKII, Aleksei Feofilaktovich.
Ocherki iz krest’ianskago byta [Sketches...
St Petersburg, [A. Dmitriev,] 1856.
First edition: ‘one of Pisemsky’s most...
£3000
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[HERZEN, Aleksandr Ivanovich]. ISKANDER (pseud.).
Prervannye razskazy… Izdanie vtoroe -...
London, Trübner & Co., 1857.
Second, corrected edition of this collection...
£1250
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GRIGOROVICH, Dmitrii Vasil’evich.
Povesti i razskazy … Chast’ pervaia...
Moscow, E. Barfknekht, 1858, & V. Grachev,...
First collected edition of Grigorovich’s...
£2000
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ROZENGEIM, Mikhail Pavlovich.
Stikhotvoreniia [Poems] …
St Petersburg, Artillery Department Press,...
First edition of Rozengeim’s first book,...
£2000
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PUSHKIN, Aleksandr Sergeevich.
Sochineniia A. S. Pushkina. Tom pervyi...
St Petersburg, Eduard Prats, 1859-60.
Third collected edition of the works of...
£8000
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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...
£1750
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TOLSTOY, Count Aleksei Konstantinovich.
Smert’ Ioanna Groznago, tragediia v piati...
St Petersburg, Naval Ministry Press, 1866.
First edition: the first in the great trilogy...
£2000
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LESKOV, Nikolai Semenovich.
Soboriane. Stargorodskaia khronika [Cathedral...
Moscow, University Press, March - July 1872.
The first appearance in print of all five...
£2500