DU BOSC, Jacques.

L’onneste femme, divisée en trois parties. Reveue, corrigée et augmentée en cette derniere edition …

Lyon, Antoine Cellier, 1661.

Very rare Lyon edition of Du Bosc’s famous ‘feminist’ work.

£450

[TOLSTOY, Lev Nikolaevich.] BIRIUKOV, Pavel Ivanovich (editor).

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoi. Biografiia. Sostavil P. Biriukov...

Moscow, Pechkovsky, ‘Posrednik’, 1906[-8].

First edition, rare, of the first authorised biography of Tolstoy (then aged seventy-eight), by his friend, secretary and disciple Pavel Biriukov (1860–1931), drawing on much unpublished archival material and written in personal consultation with Tolstoy over a period of at least six years.

£1800

[STOCKER, Nanette.]

Histoire et voyages de la petite Nanette Stocker, et de Jean Hauptman.

Paris, [s.n.], An 10 (1802).

First edition, very rare, of this pamphlet detailing the life and travels of Nanette Stocker and Jean Hauptmann, travelling musicians and performers with dwarfism.

£375

[GOR’KII, Maksim, pseud. [Aleksei Maksimovich PESHKOV], and Nikolai Stepanovich GUMILEV.]

Ballady o Robin Gude...

St Petersburg, “Vsemirnaia Literatura”, 1919.

First edition, very rare, of a collection of translations of twelve popular songs featuring Robin Hood, published in the early Soviet series Vsemirnaia Literaura (‘Worldwide Literature’), edited by Gumilev and with a ten-page introduction by Gorky.

£900

GORODETSKII, Sergei Mitrofanovich.

Iva. Piataia kniga stikhov [Willow. A fifth book of verse].

St Petersburg, ‘Shipovnik’, 1913.

First edition. Well received by the critics, this, the fifth collection from the co-founder of the Poets’ Guild and Acmeist movement, includes poems about the life of religious wanderers, pilgrims and the world of monasteries, as well as several children’s stories. Of his friend and collaborator,...

£200

BRIUSOV, Valerii Iakovlevich.

Mig. Stikhi 1920–1921 g. [The Instant. Verses of 1920–1921].

Berlin and St Petersburg, Z.I. Grzhebin, 1922.

First edition. The post-Revolutionary period, spanning the years shortly before his death in 1924, was one of intense poetic activity for Bryusov. Of the work from this period, ‘several poems are devoted to recent history and current events – to the Revolution, the famine years, the death...

£200

SOLOGUB, Fedor Kuzmich, pseud. [Fedor TETERNIKOV].

Koster dorozhnyi [A wayside fire].

Moscow and Petrograd, [‘Tvorchestvo’,] 1922.

First edition, containing three cycles of verse by the leading Symbolist: ‘Vneshnii krug’ (Outer circle), ‘Put’’ (Path), and ‘Predel’ (Limit). This was one of the last collections of Sologub’s poems to appear before the state banned any further publication of his work in 1923....

£550

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

[HARSDÖRFFER, Georg Philipp.]

Peristromata turcica, sive Dissertatio emblematica, praesentem Europae statum ingeniosis coloribus...

Scarce first and only Latin edition of this polemical pro-Richelieu pamphlet with six engraved emblems in red and black within elaborate tapestry borders, respectively representing the empires of Turkey, Rome, Spain-Germany, Poland, and the rest of Europe.

£2000

'DON-AMINADO', pseud. [Aminad Petrovich SHPOLIANSKII].

Neskuchnyi sad [Bare garden].

Paris, [Imprimerie E.I.R.P.,] 1935.

First edition, no. 38 of 150 copies, a poetical collection by the émigré poet, satirist and feuilletonist Aminad Shpolyansky.

£150

[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

BALZAC, Honoré de, and Fedor Kuz’mich SOLOGBUB, pseud. [Fedor TETERNIKOV], translator.

Ozornye skazki [Contes...

Petersburg, “Poliarnaia Zvezda”, 1922.

First edition, very rare, of Sologub’s translation of two of Balzac’s satirical Contes drolatiques, ‘The fair Imperia’ and ‘The fair Imperia married’.

£500

IVANOV, Viacheslav Ivanovich.

Mladenchestvo [Infancy].

St Petersburg, “Alkonost”, 1918.

First edition. The poet, translator, critic and scholar Vyacheslav Ivanov (1866–1949) was one of the leaders of the Symbolist movement and its principal theorist.

£600

BLOK, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich.

O sovremennom sostoianii russkogo simvolizma [On the current state of Russian symbolism].

St Petersburg, “Alkonost”, 1921.

First edition, a lecture read by Blok in April 1910 before the Society of Zealots of the Artistic Word, a discussion group formed by Gumilev, Blok and others in 1909.

£150

GOR’KII, Maksim, pseud. [Aleksei Maksimovich PESHKOV].

Zhaloby [Complaints].

N.p., Rabochee Knigoizdatel’stvo, 1916.

An ephemeral publication of a short story by Gorky, first published in four parts in Berlin, 1910-1911.

£200

SHAKESPEARE, William, and Boris Leonidovich PASTERNAK, translator.

Otello, venetsianskii mavr. Perevod s angliiskogo...

Moscow, Ogiz, 1945.

First edition of Pasternak’s translation. ‘Pasternak was attached to Shakespeare for all his creative life. In his best early verse collection My Sister Life (pub. 1922), the poem “English Lessons” featured Desdemona and Ophelia “letting their passions slip from their shoulders...

£1000

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

SHIRMAN, Grigorii Iakovlevich.

Klinopis’ molnii [Cuneiform of Lightnings].

Moscow, All-Russian Union of Poets, 1926.

First edition. A friend of Esenin and Mariengof, Shirman (1888–1956) graduated from the medical faculty at Moscow University in 1912 and worked as a doctor in the city. He was arrested four times (1927, 1937, 1941, 1949), but was released each time without charge. His first book of verse, Mashina...

£250

SHAGINYAN, Marietta Sergeevna.

O blazhenstve imushchago: poeziia Z.N. Gippius [On the bliss of the propertied: the poetry of...

Moscow, “Al’tsiona”, [1912].

First edition, a critical essay by Shaginian published in the same year as Orientalia (advertised here), the collection of poetry that brought her fame.

£350

BRIUSOV, Valerii Iakovlevich.

Kratkii kurs nauki o stikhe ... Chast’ pervaia. Chastnaia metrika i ritmika russkago iazyka [A...

Moscow, “Al’tsiona”, 1919.

Very rare first edition, the only chapter to be published of Briusov’s ‘short course in the study of poetry’.

£120