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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. DZHEMBULAT, E.

    Krai ottsov [Land of the fathers].

    Berlin, Parabola, [1934?].

    First edition: a collection of poems.

    £100

  2. EHRENBURG, Il’ia Grigorievich.

    Ogon’ [Fire].

    [Gomel], “Veka i Dni”, 1919.

    First edition. Although primarily known in the West as a prose writer and journalist (his novel Ottepel’ (The Thaw, 1954) coined the term for the era in the post-Stalin period), Ehrenburg (1891–1967) in fact wrote poetry all his life. The title for this collection, published...

    £200

  3. EHRENBURG, Ilya Grigorievich.

    Огонь [‘Ogon’; ‘Fire’].

    [Gomel,] “Veka i Dni”, 1919.

    First edition of this collection of poems, with a long signed presentation inscription in Russian on title-page to the actress Varvara Alekseeva-Meskhieva in pencil, covering the title-page: ‘To dear Varvara Vladimirovna Alekseeva-Meskhieva, from the heart, Ehrenburg. On the eve of departure...

    £2000

  4. [EL CID.] CHUDINOV, Aleksandr, translator.

    Poema i izbrannye romansy o Side v perevodakh russkikh pisatelei. Ispanskii narodnyi...

    St Petersburg, Glazunov, 1897.

    First edition of a prose translation into Russian of Cantar de mio Cid, preceded only by a ‘short retelling’ of 1864 by Fyodor Buslaev.

    £1250

  5. ERNST, Max.

    Une Semaine de Bonté ou les sept éléments capitaux. Roman. Premier [–Dernier] Cahier …

    Paris, Éditions Jeanne Bucher, 1934.

    First edition, no. 706 of 800 copies on papier Navarre from a total edition of 816.

    £4500

  6. FAGNANI, Giovanni Marco. 

    De bello Arriano libri sex. 

    Milan, heirs of Pacifico da Ponte and Giovanni Battista Piccaglia, 1604. 

    First and only edition of the sole published work by the Italian nobleman Giovanni Marco Fagnani (1524–1609), an epic poem recounting Ambrose of Milan’s campaign against local Arians in late fourth-century Lombardy. 

    £900

  7. FEDIN, Konstantin Aleksandrovich.

    Sad [The Orchard].

    Petrograd, 1922.

    Rare first edition of Konstantin Fedin’s first book, a short story which was awarded first prize by the House of Writers.

    £1100

  8. FEDIN, Konstantin Aleksandrovich.

    Goroda i gody. Roman [Cities and years. A novel].

    Leningrad, Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel’stvo, 1924.

    First edition of Fedin’s autobiographical first novel, Cities and Years, an intense exploration of war and its aftermath, and the role of the intelligentsia in the inevitable revolution looming over society. The cities of the title are Berlin and Moscow, and the years those of the First World War and...

    £1200

  9. FERDOWSĪ.

    Shāhnāmah.

    Tehran, Amir Kabir, AH 1350 [AD 1971].

    A lavishly-produced edition of the Shāhnāmah (or Shahnameh), rare in the dustjacket, one of a thousand copies printed to mark the 2500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire.

    £4750

  10. FOIX, Josep Vicenç.

    Obres poètiques, amb un pròleg de l’autor.

    Barcelona, Edicions Nauta, 1964.

    First edition of this collected anthology of Foix’s poems and prose pieces, no. 833 of 1100 numbered copies signed by the author, together with the first printing of Desa acquests llibres al calaix de baix.

    £200

  11. GARCÍA LORCA, Federico.

    Mariana Pineda. Romance popular en tres estampas.

    Madrid, La Farsa, 1928.

    First edition of Lorca’s first published play, Mariana Pineda, ‘about the Granadine heroine Mariana Pineda, who had been executed in 1831 at the age of twenty-seven by the repressive regime of Ferdinand VII, on the charge of having embroidered a flag for the town's liberal conspirators....

    £450

  12. GARCÍA LORCA, Federico.

    Bodas de sangre. Tragedia en 3 actos y 7 cuadros… Estrenada en Buenos Aires por la eminente actriz Lola...

    Buenos Aires, Teatro del Pueblo, November 1936.

    An early edition of Lorca’s Blood Wedding, published, shortly after the poet’s death, in Buenos Aires, where the play had enormous success with Lola Membrives playing the role of the mother.

    £300

  13. GARCIA LORCA, Federico.

    Cinq romances gitanes, texte espagnol et traduction par Guy Lévis-Mano.

    [Paris], GLM, [1939].

    First edition, one of 475 numbered copies, of translations into French by Guy Lévis-Mano of five poems from the Romancero gitano: ‘Saint Gabriel’, ‘La casada infiel’, ‘Romance sonámbulo’, ‘Romance de la Guardia Civil española’ and ‘Romance de la luna, luna’.

    £100

  14. GARCÍA LORCA, Federico.

    Poema del cante jondo.

    Santiago de Chile, Editorial Veloz, [1937].

    Third edition, published in Santiago de Chile, with an introduction by Pablo Neruda.

    £150

  15. [GARCÍA LORCA, Federico, et al.]

    Los Cuatro Vientos.

    Madrid, Febrero [–Junio], 1933.

    The complete run of this short-lived Madrid literary review, from February to June of 1933.

    £950

  16. GARCÍA LORCA, Federico.

    Chant funèbre pour Ignacio Sanchez Mejias & Ode à Walt Whitman. Traduits par Rolland-Simon.

    [Paris], GLM, 1938.

    Rare first edition in French of Lorca’s Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejías: copy no. 2 of 20 printed on hollande pannekoek (first paper) of a total edition of 470.

    £500

  17. GARCÍA LORCA, Federico.

    Romancero gitano.

    [Barcelona], Editorial Nuestro Pueblo, 1937.

    Published seven months after Lorca’s death, this ‘Edición de homenaje popular’ has an introduction by Rafael Alberti.

    £200

  18. GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ, Gabriel, and Avellí ARTÍS-GENER, translator.

    ...

    Barcelona, Edhasa, 1970.

    First edition of Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude in Catalan, translated by the journalist, translator, and writer Avellí Artís-Gener (1912–2000).

    £150

  19. GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ, Gabriel.

    ‘El Olor de la Guayaba.’ Conversaciones con Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza.

    Bogotá, La Oveja Negra, 1982.

    First edition, published simultaneously in Colombia, Spain and Mexico. A series of interviews with García Márquez in which he discusses his family, his friends, his enemies, his work, his views on politics, etc.

    £150

  20. GIONO, Jean.

    Colline.

    Paris, Bernard Grasset, Les Cahiers Verts, 1929.

    First edition of Giono’s first book; it forms the first part of his successful ‘Pan trilogy’ with Un de Baumugnes (1929) and Regain (1930).

    £450