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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. [TOLSTOY, Lev Nikolaevich.] ORLOV, Nikolai.

    Russkie Muzhiki. Kartiny khudozhnika N. Orlova, s predisloviem Leva Nikolaevicha Tolstogo...

    St Petersburg, R. Golik & A. Vilborg, 1909.

    First and only edition of this album of nine black and white reproductions of folk-art paintings by the peasant artist Nikolai Orlov, prefaced by an 8-page introduction by Tolstoy. The realistic portrayal of Russian society, especially of the peasantry, was a cause beloved by Tolstoy, and is a key feature...

    £1200

  2. TOLSTOY, Lev Nikolaevich.

    Posmertnyia zapiski startsa Fedora Kuz’micha umershago 20-go ianvaria 1864 goda v Sibiri, bliz goroda...

    St Petersburg, V. Vrublevskii, 1912.

    First edition, very rare, of an unfinished story, begun in 1905, exploring the popular legend that Tsar Alexander I had staged his own death in 1825 and had gone into hiding as the hermit Fedor Kuz’mich.

    £1750

  3. TOLSTOY, Lev Nikolaevich.

    Posmertnyia khudozhestvennyia proizvedeniia… pod redaktsii V Chertkova. Tom I [-III] [Posthumous...

    [Moscow], A.L. Tolstoy, [1912].

    A reprint, in slightly smaller format than the first edition of 1911, of Tolstoy’s posthumous works, which included the first appearance of many important pieces: ‘Hadji Murad, as well as The Memoirs of a Madman and The Devil, was published only in 1911, in the collected edition...

    £800

  4. TOLSTOY, Lev Nikolaevich.

    Zhivoi trup. Drama v 6 deistviiakh i 12 kartinakh [A Living Corpse. A drama in 6 acts and 12 scenes].

    Moscow, A. Ia. Petrov, [1911].

    One of the earliest printings of Tolstoy’s Living Corpse, one of a number of editions in 1911, the year it was first staged, posthumously, at the Moscow Arts Theatre, offered with a traditional gypsy folk song included in the performance of Act II of The Living Corpse, first edition...

    £2750

  5. TRETIAKOV, Sergei Mikhailovich.

    Rychi, Kitai! Stikhi [Roar, China! Poems].

    Moscow, “Ogonek”, 1926.

    First edition, very rare. Tretyakov wrote these lyrics during an extended visit to China in 1924, during which he collected material for his subsequent work on contemporary China. The name of the title poem ('Rychi, Kitai!') was used again for Tretyakov’s famous avant-garde play of the same...

    £350

  6. TUGAN-BARANOSKIĬ, M. I.

    Sovremennyĭ sotsializm v svoem istoricheskom razvitii.

    St. Petersburg, Buduschnost’, 1906.

    First edition of Tugan-Baranoskiĭ’s work on socialism; it was translated into English as Modern Socialism in its Historical Development by M. I. Redmount and published in 1910. After dismissal from his position at the University of St. Petersburg in 1899 for ‘political unreliability’, Tugan-Baranoskiĭ...

    £350

  7. TUGAN-BARANOVSKII, Mikhail Ivanovich.

    Величайшая въ мірѣ коммунистическая организація...

    Moscow, Vserossiiskii Tsentral’nii Coiuz Potrebitel’nykh Obshchestv’, 1918.

    Rare Russian language tract on ‘The Greatest Communist Society in the World (Doukhobor Society),’ which left Russia for Canada in 1898-9, aided by Leo Tolstoy.

    £250

  8. TUGAN-BARANOVSKII, Mikhail Ivanovich.

    Russkaia fabrika v proshlom’ i nastoiashchem’ [The Russian factory in the past and present].

    St Petersburg, L. F. Pantelev, 1898.

    First edition thus, originally issued as the author’s doctoral dissertation in 1894, a historic-economic analysis of Russian factories up to the 19th century. Beginning with a long introductory chapter on the 18th century, the work analyses factory development before and after the emancipation of the...

    £850

  9. TUGAN-BARANOVSKII, Mikhail Ivanovich.

    Teoreticheskiia osnovyi Marksizma.

    St Petersburg, I. N. Skorokhodov, 1905.

    First Russian edition of Theoretical Foundations of Marxism; a German edition, Theoretische Grundlagen der Marxismus, was published in the same year.

    £750

  10. TUGAN-BARANOVSKI, Mikhail Ivanovich.

    Obshchestvennoe ekonomicheskie idealyi nashego vremeni

    Saint Petersburg, Izdatelstvo ‘Vestniks Znaniya’ V.V. Bitner, 1913 .

    First and only edition of Socio-Economic Ideals in Our Time, seemingly never translated into English.

    £850

  11. TURGENEV, Ivan Sergeevich.

    Nov’. Roman [Virgin Soil. A Novel].

    Moscow, 1878.

    First edition printed in Russia of Turgenev’s novel about the Populists of the 1870s. It was first published in the journal Vestnik Evropy in 1877, followed shortly afterwards by an edition published in Leipzig.

    £1500

  12. TURGENEV, Ivan Sergeevich.

    Stikhotvoreniia [Poems].

    St Petersburg, [V Tipografii Glazunova], 1885.

    First edition: a collected volume of Turgenev’s poems omitted from the Complete collected works of 1883.

    £1200

  13. VOLOSHIN, Maksimilian Aleksandrovich.

    O Repine [On Repin] …

    Moscow, “Ole-Lukoie”, 1913.

    First edition thus: three pieces written earlier in the year and published in journals on the work of Ilya Repin (1844–1930), often regarded as Russia’s national artist. At the end is an extract from a lecture (1885) by Landtsert on the painting ‘Ivan the Terrible and his Son’. Voloshin (1877–1932)...

    £450

  14. VOLTAIRE, François Marie Arouet de. SOLOGUB, Fedor Kuzmich, pseud. [Fedor TETERNIKOV], translator.

    Kandid, ili optimizm....

    St Petersburg, “Panteon”, 1909.

    First edition, very rare, of Sologub’s translation of Candide.

    £500

  15. [VOLYNSKII A. pseud. [Akim Lvovich FLEKSER.]

    Parfenon. Sbornik Pervyi [Parthenon. First collection (All published)].

    St Petersburg “Parfenon” 1922.

    The first and only issue of a literary journal edited by A. Volynsky (1863–1926).

    £250

  16. ZAMIATIN, Evgenii Ivanovich.

    Nechestivye rasskazy [Impious Tales].

    [Moscow,] ‘Krug’ writers’ cooperative, 1927.

    First edition of a collection of eight short stories by the increasingly dissident Zamyatin, including ‘Iks’ [‘X’] and ‘Rasskaz o samom glavnom’ (‘Tale of the most essential thing’), ‘the single most important work of Zamjatin’s transitional period’ (Shane).

    £200

  17. ZOSHCHENKO, Mikhail Mikhailovich.

    Izbrannye rasskazy i povesti 1923-1956 [Collected stories and tales 1923-1956].

    Leningrad, ‘Soviet Writer’, 1956.

    First complete edition of Zoshchenko’s shorter prose fiction, including his stories for children; a presentation copy to his friend the dramatist, translator and poet Muza Konstantinovna Pavlova (1917-2006).

    £450

  18. ZRITEL’

    [The Observer] No. 24.

    St Petersburg, “Sever”/A. M. Lesman, 1905.

    A very rare number, confiscated by the authorities, of the very first of the satirical magazines to come out of the 1905 Revolution. 25 numbers were published, between 5 June and 11 December 1905, edited by Yu. K. Artsybyshev. Contributors include Fedor Sologub, and the artists Epifanov and Shestopalov,...

    £750

  19. ZVIAGINTSEVA, Vera Klavdievna.

    Na mostu. Stikhotvoreniia [On the Bridge. Poems.].

    Moscow, [Gostip,] 1922.

    First edition of one of Zviagintseva’s (1894–1972) earliest publications. She also produced translations of Armenian, Estonian, and Ukrainian poetry.

    £100