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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PISEMSKII, Aleksei Feofilaktovich.
Ocherki iz krest’ianskago byta [Sketches from Peasant Life].
St Petersburg, [A. Dmitriev,] 1856.
First edition: ‘one of Pisemsky’s most universally acclaimed books’ (Moser, p. 54) and the one which cemented his reputation as ‘a chronicler of the life of the common people’ (Terras).
£3000
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[POETS’ GUILD.]
Tsekh Poetov I [–III].
Berlin, S. Efron, 1922[–3].
First edition of this literary almanack from the newly re-established Poets’ Guild, first formed in 1911 and with members including Gumilev, Gorodetsky, and Mandelstam, the core of whom became known as the Acmeists.
£1250
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[PORCELAIN.] KUKHNOV, A.F.
Recueil de marques de fabriques de porcelaine Russes.
[Paris, Imprimerie de Vaugirard, 1927.]
Rare first and only edition of Kukhnov’s descriptive catalogue of eminent Russian porcelain factories, comprising brief histories of the factories accompanied by reproductions of their various factory marks.
£600
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PUSHKIN, Aleksandr Sergeevich. Manuel ALTOLAGUIRRE and Ovady SAVICH, translators.
Teatro (El Convidado de piedra....
Barcelona, Editado por la Asociación de Relaciones con la U.R.S.S. en el primer centenario del poeta, 1938.
First edition of Altolaguirre’s translation of two of Pushkin’s Little Tragedies, ‘The Stone Guest’ and ‘A Feast During the Plague’ produced for the Russian poet’s centenary; apparently printed on Altolaguirre’s own press.
£300
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[PUSHKIN, Aleksandr Sergeevich.] BRIUSOV, Valerii Iakovlevich (editor).
Pis’ma Pushkina i k Pushkinu. Novye materialy,...
Moscow, Press of the Society for the Distribution of Useful Books, 1903.
First edition of this collection of Pushkin’s correspondence, edited by the Symbolist poet and critic Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov (1873–1924); most of the contents are published from the original manuscripts.
£900
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[PUSHKIN, Aleksandr Sergeevich.] BRIUSOV, Valerii Iakovlevich (editor).
Litseiskie stikhi Pushkina, po rukopisiam Moskovskago...
Moscow, “Skorpion”, 1907.
First edition – the symbolist poet Valery Briusov’s critical notes to volume I of the Academy edition of Pushkin’s Works (1899), which had included his Lycée poems 1812-17.
£350
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PUSHKIN, Aleksandr Sergeevich. DUPONT, H. (translator).
Oeuvres choisies... traduites pour la première fois en français... Tome...
St Petersburg, chez Fd. Bellizard et Cie; Paris, Au comptoir des Imprimeurs-unis, 1847.
First collected edition of Pushkin in French, preceded in French translation only by some individual poems and stories, and a translation of The Queen of Spades in 1843. This is one of the earliest major collections of Pushkin to appear outside Russia.
£2500
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PUSHKIN, Aleksandr Sergeevich.
Sochineniia A. S. Pushkina. Tom pervyi [- shestoi + Prilozheniia]… Izdanie Ia. A. Isakova [The...
St Petersburg, Eduard Prats, 1859-60.
Third collected edition of the works of Pushkin, complete with the supplement volume compiled by Grigorii Gennadi; this is the first edition to be edited by Isakov. Very rare.
£8000
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PUSHKIN, Aleksandr Sergeevich.
Bumagi … Vypusk pervyi [all published] [Papers … First Part].
Moscow, University Press (M. Katkov), 1881.
First edition of Pushkin’s collected papers, edited by P.I. Bartenev, the first (and at that time only) person allowed access to them.
£1200
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[PUSHKIN, Aleksandr Sergeevich.]
Al’bom Pushkinskoi Iubileinoi Vystavki v Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk v S. Peterburg, Mai 1899...
Moscow, K.A. Fisher, 1899.
The catalogue of an exhibition to celebrate the centenary of Pushkin’s birth, held at the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg.
£800
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[PUSHKIN, Aleksandr Sergeevich.]
Iubileinyi Al’bom v pamiat’ stoletiia so dnia rozhdeniia poeta 1799–1899 [A Jubilee Album...
St Petersburg, A.F. Marx, 1899.
First edition of an album in celebration of Pushkin, published as a supplement in the literary magazine Niva.
£1500
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PUSHKIN, Aleksandr Sergeevich.
Můj rodokmen [My genealogy].
[Prague, Průmyslová tiskárna, 1937.]
First edition, privately printed, of this Czech translation of Pushkin’s Moia rodoslovnaia (‘My genealogy’, 1830), the great Russian poet’s defence of his ancestry against some recent racial slurs. The fine illustrations are by Karel Svolinský (1896–1986), who is best known...
£250
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[PUSHKIN, Aleksandr Sergeevich (contributor).]
Сѣверные цвѣты на 1825 годъ [Severnye tsvety na 1825...
St Petersburg, Department of Public Education, 1825 [Moscow, Universitetskaia tip., 1881].
Rare nineteenth-century Moscow reprint of the exceptionally rare first issue of Northern flowers, one of the most celebrated Russian literary anthologies, edited by Pushkin’s great friend Delvig. The 1825 issue included the first appearance of four passages from part ii of Eugene...
£1750
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[PUSHKIN, Alexander.]
LÉNSTRÖM, Carl Julius. Alexander Puschkin. Rysslands Byron. Ett Skaldeporträtt … första [-sednare]...
Uppsala, Leffler och Sebell; 1841.
First edition, very rare, of a study of Pushkin by the Swedish literary historian C. J. Lénström delivered at the Gustavian Auditorium on 8 December 1841.
£350
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RADIUS, J.
S. C. de. Characteristic Features of Russian and Slavic Poetry, with Specimens, translated by English Authors …
London, printed by Seyfang & Co. [for the author], 1854.
First and only edition. This little book contains what must be some of the earliest translations of Ukrainian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Slovene, Slovak, and Sorb verse into English. It certainly offers an early example of comparative Slavonic studies. Most of the specimens, however, are Russian, among...
£325
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RADLOVA, Anna Dmitrievna.
Korabli. Vtoraia kniga stikhov [Ships. A Second Book of Poems].
St Petersburg, “Alkonost”, 1920.
First edition of the second collection of poems published by Anna Radlova (1891–1949), a poet well-known for her translations of Shakespeare.
£150
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RADLOVA, Anna Dmitrievna.
Krylatyi gost’. Tret’ia kniga stikhov [The Winged Guest. A Third Book of Poems].
[St Petersburg,] “Petropolis”, 1922.
First edition: Radlova’s third collection of poems, written in 1920–22.
£120
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RAFALOVICH, Sergei L’vovich.
Avgust. Stikhotvoreniia [August. Poems].
Berlin, L.D. Frenkel, 1924.
First edition: a rare collection from the prolific if little-known poet and theatre critic, including a piece on the death of Blok.
£100
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REMIZOV, Aleksei Mikhailovich.
Elektron.
St Petersburg, “Alkonost”, 1919.
First edition, one of only a small number of poetic works by Remizov, ‘the most original, many-sided, and accomplished modernist prose writer…, a writer who at best would score a succès d’estime with a select public and never gained international recognition’ (Terras, History...
£250
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ROMANOV, Panteleimon Sergeevich.
Domovoi [The house-sprite].
Moscow & Leningrad, “Zemlia i Fabrika”, [1926].
First edition, published in the ‘Worker-Peasant Library’ series, containing four short stories: Domovoi (‘The house-sprite’), Opis’ (‘The list’), Obshchestvennye raboty (‘Social work’, a fragment from Rus’), and Druzhnyi narod (‘A friendly people’).
£350