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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CARPENTIER, Alejo.
El Reino de este mundo (relato).
Lima, Talleres Gráficos Torres Aguirres, [1959].
Carpentier’s second novel, re-published on the occasion of the ‘1er Festival del Libro Cubano’ in 1959. First published in Mexico in 1949, the novel treats slave uprisings in eighteenth-century Haiti. The original introduction (reprinted here) contains the first mention of the concept of ‘magic...
£100
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CARVALLO, Luciano.
La Iglesia y la soberanía del pueblo.
Bogotá, Enrique Zalamea, 1879.
First (?) edition, very rare, a presentation copy to the author’s friend, the writer Demetrio Viana, dated 27 December 1881.
£450
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CELAN, Paul.
Von Schwelle zu Schwelle. Gedichte.
Stuttgart, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, [1955].
First edition of Celan’s second collection of poems. Dedicated to his wife Gisèle, it is Celan’s first book to arise wholly from Paris.
£400
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CERNUDA, Luis.
Las Nubes (1937–1938).
Buenos Aires, Colección Rama de Oro, 1943.
First edition: a collection of poems written during Cernuda's stay in England, focusing on the tragic destiny of the Spaniard.
£1000
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CHACHIKOV, Aleksandr Mikhailovich.
Chai-Khane.
Moscow, Moscow Guild of Poets, 1927.
First edition of a collection which highlights the poet’s interest in the Caucasus and other (non-Russian) parts of the Soviet Union, often employing foreign words in the poems.
£100
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CHTETS-DEKLAMATOR.
Chtets-deklamator. Khudozhestvennyi sbornik stikhotvorenii razskazov i monologov dlia chteniia v divertismentakh,...
[Kiev, I.I. Samonenko, 1906.]
Ivan and Fyodor Samonenko’s hugely popular series . There were at least 12 editions before the Revolution, highlighting Russia’s passion for performance at the time. The first volume, containing lyric poetry and humorous verse, had appeared in 1902. A second volume, in 1905, of which this...
£450
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CIRIA Y ESCALANTE, José de.
[Poemas.]
Madrid, Artes de la illustración, 1924.
Scarce first edition, no. 172 of 200 copies, a collection of thirteen poems by Ciria y Escalante, who died from typhus at the age of twenty-one, brought posthumously to press by the author’s friends, among them Lorca and Buñuel.
£1500
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[COLETTE.] ‘WILLY’, pseud. [Henri GAUTHIER-VILLARS].
En Bombe. Roman modern. Illustrations photographiques.
Paris, Nilsson, Per Lamm, [1904].
First edition of these vignettes of bohemian life in fin-de-siècle Paris by author and critic Willy, illustrated by nearly one hundred photographs of the author himself, as well as Marcel Boulestin, Marcelle Rossat, and Colette’s famous French bulldog, Toby-Chien.
£600
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CORTÁZAR, Julio.
Bestiario.
Buenos Aires, Editorial Sudamericana, [1951]
First edition, with a signed presentation inscription ‘Para Norma y Jean Luc, con la amistad de Julio, 1955’, on the first (blank) page.
£1500
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[COURTILZ DE SANDRAS, Gatien de.]
Les dames dans leur naturel, ou la galanterie sans façon. Sous le regne du Grand Alcandre.
‘A Cologne’ [but Netherlands], ‘chez Pierre Marteau’ [Elzevier?], 1686.
First edition, uncommon, of this story, ‘found in a cabinet, long after it had been written’ by the French novelist and pamphleteer Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras (1644–1712), nowadays best known for his semi-fictionalised Mémoires de Mr. d’Artagnan, which heavily influenced Dumas’...
£685
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[DANIEL, Iulii Markovich] Nikolai ARZHAK, pseud.
Govorit Moskva. Povest’ [This is Moscow Speaking. A Story].
Washington, Filipoff, 1962.
First edition, printed in Germany, of one of the books which led directly to Daniel’s arrest and trial in 1966.
£150
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DAUDET, Alphonse.
Lettres de mon Moulin. Impressions et souvenirs.
Paris, J. Hetzel et Ce, [1869].
First edition, rare, of Daudet’s Lettres de mon Moulin. These sketches of Provençal life appeared first in Le Figaro between August 1866 and October 1869, before being published in book form in 1869 and in countless editions from that time on.
£2500
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DE BEAUVOIR, Simone.
The Mandarins. A Novel …
Cleveland and New York, The World Publishing Company, [1956].
First edition in English, signed by De Beauvoir on the limitation leaf, one of 500 unnumbered copies, of which only 275 were for sale.
£750
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DESENFANS, Noel Joseph.
Les deux Hermites, dédié a mylord Lyttelton …
A Londres; chez R. Davis … J Ridley … W Owen … 1773.
First and only edition, uncommon, of an epistolary novel by the future art dealer Noel Joseph Desenfans. The scene is Paris in the 1680s, the theme is Enlightenment, and the author’s aim was to inspire ‘l’horreur de l’oppression, sentiment nécessaire à l’harmonie de la Société, & vertu...
£650
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DEVOTO, Daniel.
Libro de las fabulas. Ilustraciones de Atilio del Soldato.
[Buenos Aires], Gulab y Aldabahor, 1943.
First edition of this collection of Devoto’s poems, in the copy printed especially for him. This is one of five copies printed on Whatman paper, of a total edition of 555: ‘Ejemplar II, Especialmente impreso para Daniel Devoto’.
£400
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'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
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DUMAS, Alexandre.
Autograph letter, signed.
[Paris, not before 1859.]
A short note by the novelist and playwright Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) sending a theatre ticket and arranging to meet the unknown recipient at the Comédie-française (‘theatre francais’) at midday the following day. He says that he will do whatever he can to obtain a small box at the Théâtre...
£750
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DUMAS, Alexandre.
Les trois mousquetaires.
Paris, Michel Lévy, 1846.
Rare early edition of The Three Musketeers, first published in eight volumes in 1844.
This is the third edition published in France, although there were several Brussels printings of the novel in the interim. The half-title of the present edition announces ‘Oeuvres complètes d’Alexandre...£600
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DUMAS, Alexandre, père.
Maître Adam le Calabrais.
Paris, Dumont, 1840.
Rare first authorised edition of an early comic novel by Dumas, written in 1839, before he achieved fame as a novelist. This edition was preceded by an unauthorised printing in Brussels the previous year.
£500
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DVIGUBSKII, Ivan Alekseevich.
Opyt estestvennoi istorii vsekh zhivotnykh Rossiiskoi Imperii … S izobrazheniiami zhivotnykh. [Fly-title:]...
Moscow, University Press, 1831.
First edition, rare, one of a series of six works on the flora and fauna of the Russian Empire, published 1829–1833 under the same general title. The present volume covers molluscs, including cephalopods and gastropods.
£2000