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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. KUSIKOV, Aleksandr Borisovich, pseud. [Boris KUSIKIAN].

    Koevangelieran [Ko-gospel-ran].

    Moscow, “Imazhinisty”, 1920.

    First edition. It is difficult to piece together a cohesive picture of Aleksandr Kusikov. His romanticized self-image was one of a wild mountain-dweller, and the Circassian trappings with which he surrounded himself (he was born in 1896 in Armavir to a large Armenian family called Kusikian) were clearly...

    £100

  2. KUSIKOV, Aleksandr Borisovich, pseud. [Boris KUSIKIAN].

    Al’-barrak. Poemy.

    Berlin, “Skify”, 1922.

    First edition, containing five poems on Islamic themes: ‘Al-Barrak’, ‘Al-Kadr’, ‘Julfikar’, ‘Iskandar Namah’ (1921), and ‘Ko-gospel-ran’.

    £150

  3. KUZMIN, Mikhail Alekseevich.

    Komedii [Comedies].

    St Petersburg, “Ory”, 1908.

    First edition of one of Kuzmin’s earliest publications, a collection of three comedies on historical, pseudo-religious themes: ‘O Evdokii iz Geliopolia’ (On Eudoxia of Heliopolis), ‘O Aleksee cheloveke Bozh’em’ (On Alexis the man of God), and ‘O Martiniane’ (On...

    £900

  4. KUZMIN, Mikhail Alekseevich.

    Aleksandriiskiia pesni [Alexandrian songs].

    St Petersburg, “Prometei”, [1921].

    First separate edition of Kuzmin’s Alexandrian Songs, originally published as part of his first collection, Nets, in 1908.

    £400

  5. KUZMIN, Mikhail Alekseevich.

    Lesok. Liricheskaia poema dlia muzyki s ob”iasnitel’noi prozoi v trekh chastiakh [The Grove....

    [Petrograd, “Neopalimaia kupina”, 1922].

    First edition, copy no. 1 of a numbered edition of 500 copies.

    £750

  6. LABORDE, Ernest.

    Vieilles maisons boutiques & paysages de Paris. Eaux fortes originales de Ernest Laborde. Presentées par Gustave...

    Paris, Jules Meynial, 1918 [1919].

    First edition, very rare: two series of twenty etchings each on the most picturesque houses and shops in Paris, produced between 1911 and 1918 by Ernest Laborde (1870–1935).

    £1950

  7. [LAFONT, Joseph de.]

    Hypermnestre, tragedie, mise au theatre de l’Academie Royale de Musique de Lyon, pour la prémière fois...

    Lyon, de l’imprimerie d’Aymé Delaroche … aux dépens de l’Académie Royale de Musique, 1742.

    Very scarce Lyon edition of the libretto for the tragedy Hypermnestre by the French playwright Joseph de Lafont (1686–1725). In Greek mythology, Hypermnestra was one of the fifty daughters of Danaus, king of Argos, who defied her father by refusing to kill her husband Lynceus.

    £175

  8. LAGERLÖF, Selma.

    Bannlyst. En berättelse.

    Stockholm, Albert Bonniers Förlag, [1918].

    First edition: Lagerlöf’s pacifist novel, The Outcast, published towards the end of 1918, in which she argues for a re-examination of the state of modern Western society.

    £100

  9. LANGE, Norah.

    45 Días y 30 marineros. Novela.

    Buenos Aires, Editorial Tor (Colección Cometa), 1933.

    First edition: Norah Lange’s second novel, which follows a 20-year old girl, Ingrid, the only woman on the ship, on a voyage from Buenos Aires to Oslo.

    £100

  10. [LA ROCHE, Sophie von.] 

    Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim.  Von einer Freundin derselben aus Original-Papieren und andern...

    Leipzig, bey Weidmanns Erben und Reich, 1771. 

    First edition of Sophie von La Roche’s (1730–1807) bestselling epistolary novel, a bestseller featuring kidnapping, travels from Germany to Scotland, and a false wedding ceremony, a direct forerunner to Goethe’s Werther.

    £750

  11. LA SERRE, Jean-Puget de.

    Grab-Statt der weltlichen Ergötzlichkeiten, einstens in Französischer Sprache zubereitet … anjetzt...

    Regensburg, Johann Conrad Peetz und Bader, 1738.

    First edition in German of Tombeau des délices du monde, by the French dramatist and historian Jean-Puget de la Serre (1594–1665).

    £375

  12. LEBEDEV, V.P.

    175 godovshchina Pervago Kadetskago korpusa. 17 fevralia 1907 g. [175th Anniversary of the First Corps of Cadets,...

    [St Petersburg,] Press of the First Corps of Cadets, 1906.

    Only edition of this collection of poems commemorating the 175th anniversary of the First Corps of Cadets, set up under Anna Ivanovna. Each of the ten ‘scenes in verse’ is narrated by a cadet, once for each Tsar under which the Corps has served.

    £180

  13. LEONOV, Leonid Maksimovich.

    Petushikhinskii prolom [The Break-up of Petushikha].

    Moscow, M. & S. Shabashnikov, 1923.

    First edition of an early short story about the impact of the Revolution on the clergy and the peasantry.

    £300

  14. LEONOV, Leonid Maksimovich.

    Tuatamur.

    Moscow, M. & S. Sabashnikov, 1924.

    First edition: one of Leonov’s early stories, the tragic, sometimes savage tale of a Tartar khan who shares in the victory over the Russians at Kalka (1224, the first invasion of Russia by the Mongol hordes), only to lose his beloved Ytmar, the doomed warrior daughter of Genghiz Khan. The narrative...

    £450

  15. LESKOV, Nikolai Semenovich.

    Soboriane. Stargorodskaia khronika [Cathedral Folk. Chronicle of Stargorod]. In: Russkii Vestnik,...

    Moscow, University Press, March - July 1872.

    The first appearance in print of all five parts of Leskov’s best known novel (or ‘chronicle’ as he preferred to call it), Cathedral Folk, published in instalments, between March and July 1872, in Russkii Vestnik.

    £2500

  16. LESSING, Gotthold Ephraim, and Viktor KRYLOV (translator).

    Natan mudryi. Dramaticheskoe stikhotvorenie … perevod...

    St Petersburg, Stasiulevich, 1875.

    First edition in Russian of Lessing’s Nathan der Weise, very rare.

    £2000

  17. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    Ezra Pound, un saggio e tre disegni.

    Milan, all’insegna del pesce d’oro [Scheiwiller], 1958.

    First edition, an hors serie copy (from numbered edition of 1000), a translation by Pound’s daughter, Mary de Rachewiltz, of an essay that first appeared in Pound’s 65th birthday festschrift in 1950; this translation was published in part ‘to celebrate Ezra Pound’s return to Italy’.

    £75

  18. [LIDIN, Vladimir Germanovich, editor.]

    Literaturnaia Rossiia. Sbornik sovremennoi russkoi prozy pod redaktsiei Vl. Lidina...

    Moscow, “Novye vekhi”, 1924.

    First edition of an avant-garde collection of short stories and excerpts from novels, with autobiographical sketches and bibliographies by each of the twenty-eight contributors, all written especially for this collection.

    £1500

  19. LIVSHITS, Benedikt Konstantinovich.

    Krotonskii polden’ [High Noon at Kroton].

    Moscow, “Uzel”, 1928.

    First collected edition. Livshits’ fifth and final book of verse, after which he turned increasingly to translation work.

    £600

  20. [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