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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PARADIN, Guillaume.
Gulielmi Paradini Anchemani Epigrammata ...
Lyons, Ant. Gryphius, 1581.
First and only edition of this French historian’s poetry including verses about or addressed to Ronsard, Pontus de Tyard, Claude Rouillet, and the Lyons printers Sébastien and Antoine Gryphe, and Jean de Tournes.
£950
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SCARRON, Paul.
Le Marquis ridicule, ou la comtesse faite à la haste. Comedie … Suivant la copie imprimée a Paris.
[Leiden, Elzevier], 1656.
First Elzevier editions, very rare, of these two plays by Scarron, pirated after the text of the first editions printed in Paris. A finely bound volume with excellent Elzevierian provenance.
£800
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MARIVAUX, Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de.
Le Paysan parvenu: or, the fortunate Peasant. Being Memoirs of the Life of Mr. ––––....
London: Printed for John Brindley … Charles Corbett … and Richard Wellington … 1735
First edition in English, originally published in French in the Hague in 1734-5. This is the second of the two important novels by Marivaux, which broke new ground in the art of writing fiction. ‘Where La Vie de Marianne belongs to the moralizing and sentimental romance tradition, Le Paysan...
£650
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[BERINGTON, Simon, adapted by Jean-Baptiste DUPUY-DEMPORTES.]
Memoires de Gaudence de Luques, prisonnier de l’Inquisition...
Amsterdam and Leipzig, Arkstée & Merkus, 1754.
Second edition of this much expanded and altered translation of Berington’s celebrated utopian novel, Memoirs of Sigr Gaudentio di Lucca (1737).
£500
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[HERISSANT, Louis Théodore].
Le fablier françois, ou élite des meilleurs fables depuis La Fontaine.
Paris, Lottin le jeune, 1771.
First edition, rare, of what has a claim to be the first comprehensive collection of French fables from the period after La Fontaine, assembled by the diplomat, lawyer, and historian Louis-Théodore Herissant (1743–1811). Collecting together fables from writers both famous (Voltaire, J.B. Rousseau,...
£650
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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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[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 written by a woman for a readership of women.
£1500
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MAINE DE BIRAN. [MARIE FRANÇOIS PIERRE GONTHIER DE BIRAN.]
Influence de l’Habitude sur la Faculté de Penser.
Paris, Henrichs, 1803.
First edition of Maine de Biran’s first major work, in which he draws a distinction between what he calls passive habits, i.e. sensations and impressions which become dulled with repetition, and active habits, i.e. those which are conscious, and willed. “The effect of this, which was borne out by...
£2000
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[MURAT, J.-B. de.]
La destinée d’une jolie femme, poème érotique, en six chants, par J.B… de M…
Paris, Langlois for Mongie, An XI (1803).
First and only edition, very scarce, of this humorous moralising tale of love and loss in verse, intended for a female readership and hidden under the ‘transparent veil’ of erotic poetry.
£650
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[KRÜDENER, Barbara Juliane de Vietinghoff, Baronne de.]
Valérie, ou Lettres de Gustave de Linar à Ernest de G… Tome...
Paris, Henrichs, 1804.
Rare first edition of Valérie, the most famous novel by the Russian mystic and novelist Madame de Krüdener (1766–1824), who for a time exerted an influence over Tsar Alexander I.
£800
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JUSSIEU, Laurent Pierre de.
Antoine et Maurice. Ouvrage qui a obtenu le prix proposé par la Société Royale pour l’amélioration...
Paris, L. Colas, 1821.
First edition, rare, of this unsurprisingly moralising novel by the writer, geologist, and natural historian Laurent Pierre de Jussieu (1792-1866), written in response to a competition held by the Royal Society of the Improvement of Prisons to find the best book to circulate amongst inmates.
£250
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HUGO, Victor.
Notre-Dame de Paris. Par Victor Hugo. Troisième edition … Tome premier [– deuxième].
Paris, Charles Gosselin, 1831.
First edition, third issue, of Victor Hugo’s great historical novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, one of 275 copies printed.
£7500
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AZAÏS, Gabriel, and Charles LABOR.
Illustrated manuscript volume of poetry, comprising ‘Vingt-six janvier 1836’ by Azaïs,...
Béziers, c. 1836?
An attractive presentation volume, with poems by Azaïs (1805-1888) and Labor (1813-1900), and fine vignette sketches. Azaïs, later author of Les Troubadours de Béziers (1869) was a member of the Félibrige, the literary organization founded by Frédéric Mistral to promote Occitan language...
£1750
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MESHCHERSKII, Elim Petrovich.
Les boréales par B. de G. et le prince Elim Mestscherski …
Paris, Bellizard, Dufour et Cie, 1839.
First edition of a rare French anthology of Russian poets, including early translations of six poems by Pushkin.
£800
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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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MESHCHERSKY, Elim Petrovich, Prince.
Les roses noires …
Paris, Amyot, 1845.
Scarce first edition of this anthology of French verse by Meshchersky, posthumously brought to press by his mother and friends, publishing – for the first time – Victor Hugo’s letter of condolence to the prince's mother.
£400
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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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PUSHKIN, Aleksandr Sergeevich. DUPONT, H. (translator).
Oeuvres choisies... traduites pour la première fois en français... Tome...
St Petersburg, chez Fd. Bellizard et Cie; Paris, Au comptoir des Imprimeurs-unis, 1847.
First collected edition of Pushkin in French, preceded in French translation only by some individual poems and stories, and a translation of The Queen of Spades in 1843. This is one of the earliest major collections of Pushkin to appear outside Russia.
£2500
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NERVAL, Gérard de.
Lorely, souvenirs d’Allemagne.
Paris, D. Giraud et J. Dagneau, 1852.
First edition, second issue, of a collection of Nerval’s writings on Germany. German Romanticism had a great influence on Nerval, and he was drawn to the country, visiting it seven times. At the age of 20, he published a translation of Faust which Goethe himself praised. Lorely opens with a long preface...
£800
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GOGOL’, Nikolai Vasil’evich, and Louis VIARDOT (translator).
Tarass Boulba… traduit du russe par Louis Viardot.
Paris, Librairie de L. Hachette et Cie, 1853.
First separate appearance of Gogol’s story in the French translation by Louis Viardot, with an introduction by Turgenev, published in the series ‘Bibliothèque des chemins de fer’.
£250