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. SHAKESPEARE, William, and Bolemir IZBORSKÝ, pseud. [i.e. Antonín MAREK], translator.

    Omylowé dle Shakespeara wzdělaná weselohra...

    Prague, Jozefa Fetterlowá, ‘in the...

    First edition in Czech, very rare, of A...

    £1100

  2. SHAKESPEARE, William, and Boris Leonidovich PASTERNAK, translator.

    Otello, venetsianskii mavr. Perevod s angliiskogo...

    Moscow, Ogiz, 1945.

    First edition of Pasternak’s translation....

    £1000

  3. SHAKESPEARE, William, and Mihály VÖRÖSMARTY, translator

    Lear Király … 

    Pest, Landerer & Heckenastn, 1856. 

    First edition of the first translation...

    £950

  4. SHELLEY, Percy Bysshe, and Konstantin Dmitrievich BALMONT, translator.

    Sochineniia Shelli... Vypusk 7-i, Chenchi,...

    Moscow, Mamontov, 1899.

    First edition of Balmont’s translation...

    £900

  5. [SHERSHENEVICH, Vadim Gabrielevich, translator and editor.] VILDRAC, Charles, and Georges DUHAMEL.

    Teoriia svobodnogo stikha (zametki o poeticheskoi...

    Moscow, “Imazhinisty”, 1920.

    First edition of Shershenevich’s translation...

    £150

  6. SHERSHENEVICH, Vadim Gabrielevich.

    Bystr’. Monologicheskaia drama [Rapids....

    Moscow, “Pleiady”, 1916.

    First edition, one of 500 numbered copies,...

    £350

  7. SHIRMAN, Grigorii Iakovlevich.

    ...

    Moscow, All-Russian Union of Poets, 1926.

    First edition. A friend of Esenin and...

    £250

  8. SHKAPSKAIA, Maria Mikhailovna.

    Krov’-ruda [Blood-ore].

    St Petersburg & Berlin, Epokha, 1922.

    First edition of a collection of twenty-one...

    £300

  9. SHKAPSKAIA, Mariia Mikhailovna.

    Chas vechernii. Stikhi (1913–1917) [The...

    Petrograd, “Mysl’”, 1922.

    First edition of Maria Shkapskaya’s second...

    £350

  10. SHKAPSKAIA, Mariia Mikhailovna.

    Iav’. Poema [Reality. A poem].

    Moscow & St Petersburg, “Krug”, 1923.

    First edition, written by the poet on a...

    £400

  11. SHKAPSKAIA, Mariia Mikhailovna.

    Mater Dolorosa.

    St. Petersburg, [Neopalimaia Kupina], 1921.

    First edition of Maria Shkapskaya’s first...

    £450

  12. SIDOROV, Gurii Aleksandrovich.

    Vedro ognia [A bucket of fire].

    Moscow, [All-Russian Union of Poets, 1920].

    £150

  13. SIMEONI, Gabriele.

    Le III parti del campo de primi studii...

    [(Colophon:) Venice, Comin da Trino], 1546.

    First edition of this early work by Simeoni,...

    £950

  14. SKABICHEVSKII, Aleksandr Mikhailovich.

    Ocherki istorii russkoi tsenzury (1700-1863...

    St Petersburg, F. Pavlenkov, 1892.

    First edition of the critic and journalist...

    £500

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

    Koster dorozhnyi [A wayside fire].

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

    First edition, containing three cycles...

    £550

  16. SOLZHENITSYN, Aleksandr Isaevich.

    Pis’mo vozhdiam Sovetskogo Soiuza [Letter...

    Paris, YMCA, 1974.

    First printed edition of a letter written...

    £150

  17. SOLZHENITSYN, Aleksandr Isaevich.

    Amerikanskiie rechi [American speeches].

    Paris, YMCA, 1975.

    First edition, comprising three speeches...

    £150

  18. STEPNIAK-KRAVCHINSKII, Sergius Mikhailovich.

    Подпольная Россiя ч. 1....

    Kiev, Otdel soldatskoi kooperatsii K....

    Extremely rare Civil War edition (first...

    £125

  19. [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

  20. STRINDBERG, August.

    Tschandala. Berättelse fran 1600–talet.

    Stockholm, C. & E. Gernandts Förlags, 1897.

    First Swedish edition: a Gothic tale, set...

    £250