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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. KUSIKOV, Aleksandr Borisovich, pseud. [Boris KUSIKIAN].

    Al’-barrak. Poemy.

    Berlin, “Skify”, 1922.

    First edition, containing five poems on Islamic themes: ‘Al-Barrak’, ‘Al-Kadr’, ‘Julfikar’, ‘Iskandar Namah’ (1921), and ‘Ko-gospel-ran’.

    £150

  2. KUZMIN, Mikhail Alekseevich.

    Komedii [Comedies].

    St Petersburg, “Ory”, 1908.

    First edition of one of Kuzmin’s earliest publications, a collection of three comedies on historical, pseudo-religious themes: ‘O Evdokii iz Geliopolia’ (On Eudoxia of Heliopolis), ‘O Aleksee cheloveke Bozh’em’ (On Alexis the man of God), and ‘O Martiniane’ (On...

    £900

  3. KUZMIN, Mikhail Alekseevich.

    Aleksandriiskiia pesni [Alexandrian songs].

    St Petersburg, “Prometei”, [1921].

    First separate edition of Kuzmin’s Alexandrian Songs, originally published as part of his first collection, Nets, in 1908.

    £400

  4. KUZMIN, Mikhail Alekseevich.

    Lesok. Liricheskaia poema dlia muzyki s ob”iasnitel’noi prozoi v trekh chastiakh [The Grove....

    [Petrograd, “Neopalimaia kupina”, 1922].

    First edition, copy no. 1 of a numbered edition of 500 copies.

    £750

  5. LEBEDEV, V.P.

    175 godovshchina Pervago Kadetskago korpusa. 17 fevralia 1907 g. [175th Anniversary of the First Corps of Cadets,...

    [St Petersburg,] Press of the First Corps of Cadets, 1906.

    Only edition of this collection of poems commemorating the 175th anniversary of the First Corps of Cadets, set up under Anna Ivanovna. Each of the ten ‘scenes in verse’ is narrated by a cadet, once for each Tsar under which the Corps has served.

    £180

  6. LEONOV, Leonid Maksimovich.

    Begstvo Mistera Mak-Kinli. Kinopovest’ [Mr MacKinley’s Flight. A Screen-play].

    Moscow, Sovetskaia Rossiia, 1963.

    First edition of Leonov’s screenplay satirising Western capitalist society, used by Mikhail Shveister in 1975 for his film of the same name, with a presentation inscription from the author on the front endleaf, signed and dated 1964.

    £100

  7. LEONOV, Leonid Maksimovich.

    Petushikhinskii prolom [The Break-up of Petushikha].

    Moscow, M. & S. Shabashnikov, 1923.

    First edition of an early short story about the impact of the Revolution on the clergy and the peasantry.

    £300

  8. LEONOV, Leonid Maksimovich.

    Tuatamur.

    Moscow, M. & S. Sabashnikov, 1924.

    First edition: one of Leonov’s early stories, the tragic, sometimes savage tale of a Tartar khan who shares in the victory over the Russians at Kalka (1224, the first invasion of Russia by the Mongol hordes), only to lose his beloved Ytmar, the doomed warrior daughter of Genghiz Khan. The narrative...

    £450

  9. LESKOV, Nikolai Semenovich.

    Soboriane. Stargorodskaia khronika [Cathedral Folk. Chronicle of Stargorod]. In: Russkii Vestnik,...

    Moscow, University Press, March - July 1872.

    The first appearance in print of all five parts of Leskov’s best known novel (or ‘chronicle’ as he preferred to call it), Cathedral Folk, published in instalments, between March and July 1872, in Russkii Vestnik.

    £2500

  10. LESSING, Gotthold Ephraim, and Viktor KRYLOV (translator).

    Natan mudryi. Dramaticheskoe stikhotvorenie … perevod...

    St Petersburg, Stasiulevich, 1875.

    First edition in Russian of Lessing’s Nathan der Weise, very rare.

    £2000

  11. [LIDIN, Vladimir Germanovich, editor.]

    Literaturnaia Rossiia. Sbornik sovremennoi russkoi prozy pod redaktsiei Vl. Lidina...

    Moscow, “Novye vekhi”, 1924.

    First edition of an avant-garde collection of short stories and excerpts from novels, with autobiographical sketches and bibliographies by each of the twenty-eight contributors, all written especially for this collection.

    £1500

  12. LIVSHITS, Benedikt Konstantinovich.

    Krotonskii polden’ [High Noon at Kroton].

    Moscow, “Uzel”, 1928.

    First collected edition. Livshits’ fifth and final book of verse, after which he turned increasingly to translation work.

    £600

  13. LUNACHARKSII, Anatolii Vaslievich.

    Piat’ farsov dlia liubitelei [Five farces for amateurs].

    St Petersburg, “Shipovnik”, 1907.

    Very rare first edition of five early plays, written for amateur performance, but rarely staged: ‘Sverkhchelovek’ (Superman), ‘Esche skvernyi anekdot’ (Another nasty anecdote), ‘Beglyi politik’ (The fugitive politician), ‘Bomba’ (Bomb), and ‘Obshchestvo maloi skorosti’ (Low-speed...

    £500

  14. [LUNACHARSKII, Anatolii Vasilievich, and Sergei Mitrofanovich GORODETSKII, editors.]

    Styk. Pervyi sbornik stikhov Moskovskogo Tsekha...

    Moscow, Moscow Guild of Poets, 1925.

    First edition of an anthology edited by Lunacharsky and Gorodetsky, including poems by Pavel Antokolsky, Bryusov, Bely, Pasternak, Aleksandr Shiryaevet, Mikhail Zenkevich, and others. Pasternak’s contribution, ‘Spektorskii’, was first published complete in book form in 1931.

    £250

  15. MANDELSTAM, Osip Emilyevich.

    О Поэзии: СборникСтатей [O poezii: Sbornik statei; ‘On poetry: A collection...

    Leningrad, Academia, 1928.

    First edition of this collection of essays on poetry and the arts, by the prominent Acmeist poet Osip Mandelstam (1891–1938). ‘[Mandelstam] regarded the period during which he wrote these articles (1922-26) as the worst in his life. It was a period of decline, and in repudiating it altogether,...

    £850

  16. MARKISH, Peretz Davidovich.

    Rubezh. Izbrannye stikhi [Threshold. Selected poems]. Moscow, Goslitizdat, 1933.

    [Selected poems]. Moscow, Goslitizdat, 1933.

    First edition in Russian of the first book by the Soviet Yiddish poet and novelist Peretz Markish (1895-1952), a collection of poems, Shveln (Threshold, Kiev, 1919) which established his reputation as one of the most important Yiddish poets of his time.

    £1800

  17. MARKISH, Peretz Davidovich.

    Brat’ia [Brothers].

    Moscow, Goslitizdat, 1935.

    First edition in Russian of Markish’s epic poem Brider (Brothers, Kiev, 1929), an optimistic work glorifying the Communist regime.

    £1200

  18. MARKISH, Peretz Davidovich.

    Stikhotvoreniia i poemy. Perevod s evreiskogo [Poems, long and short. Translated from the Hebrew].

    Moscow, Ogiz, 1945.

    First edition, a collection of late poems by the pre-eminent Soviet Yiddish poet and novelist Peretz Markish; the translations are by several hands.

    £300

  19. MARLOWE, Christopher, and Konstantin BAL’MONT, translator.

    Tragicheskaia istoriia doktora Fausta [The Tragedy...

    Moscow, K.F. Nekrasov, 1912.

    First edition in book form, scarce, of Balmont’s translation of Marlowe’s Faustus, first published over two issues of the journal Zhizn in 1898.

    £500

  20. 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