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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. 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

  2. MILL, John Stuart, and Nikolai Gavrilovich CHERNYSHEVSKY, translator.

    Osnovaniia politicheskoi ekonomii s nekotorymi...

    St. Petersburg, [n.p.], 1865.

    First complete edition of Mill’s Principles in Russian, translated by the economist, nihilist and social critic Nikolai Chernyshevsky (1828-1889), ‘corrected and expanded from the most recent (fifth) edition of Mill’s book, published in 1864 in New York’ (‘From the publisher’, our...

    £3750

  3. MOROZOV, Mikhail Mikhailovich.

    O’tao. Drama v 2-kh deistviiakh [Drama in Two Acts].

    Moscow, Sozvezdie, 1921.

    First edition of a short play, set in Japan, by the Shakespeare scholar and translator M.M. Morozov (1897–1952). It was premiered on 15 June 1921.

    £100

  4. MOROZOV, Nikolai Aleksandrovich.

    Zvezdnyia pesni … [Celestial Songs].

    Moscow, “Zadruga”, 1920.

    First published in 1910, this second, enlarged edition is the ‘first complete edition’ of Morozov’s poetry, bringing the collection up-to-date (i.e. 1919). We offer volume I; a second appeared in 1921.

    £120

  5. MUSSET, Alfred de, and Nikolai Porfir’evich GREKOV, translator.

    Rolla, poema … perevod N.P. Grekova [Rolla,...

    Moscow, F.B. Miller, 1864.

    First edition in Russian of Musset’s Rolla (1833), a poetic reinterpretation of the Don Juan myth, translated by the poet Nikolai Porfir’evich Grekov (1810–1866).

    £1750

  6. OLESHA, Iurii Karlovich.

    Zavist’. Roman, s risunkami Natana Al’tman [Envy. A novel, with drawings by Nathan Altman].

    Moscow-Leningrad, “Zemlia Fabrika, [1928].

    First edition of this famous short satirical novel which ‘catapulted Olesha into the first rank of Soviet writers’ (Terras). It was fêted by both Soviet and émigré critics and established the young writer’s reputation almost overnight. Olesha later adapted it as a play, Zagovor...

    £3000

  7. OLESHA, Iurii Karlovich.

    Zapiski pisatelia [Notes of a writer].

    Moscow, [“Ogonek” for] Journalists Union, 1931.

    Apparent first edition of Olesha’s autobiographical sketch.

    £150

  8. OLESHA, Iurii Karlovich.

    Spisok blagodeianii … [List of blessings].

    Moscow, “Federatsiia”, 1931.

    First edition of the writer’s only original play. Olesha (1899–1960) is best known for the short novel Zavist’ (Envy, 1927), which was fêted by both Soviet and émigré critics and established the young writer’s reputation almost overnight.

    £200

  9. OSTROGORSKII, Aleksandr Iakovlevich.

    Zhivoe slovo. Kniga dlia izucheniia rodnogo iazyka [Living word. A book for learning our...

    New York, Association Press, 1920.

    Stereotype (first American?) edition. First published in 1907, Ostrogorsky’s (1868–1908) Zhivoe slovo was a runaway success in Russia, where it was widely regarded as the best reader of its type. Such high regard for the book presumably made it an obvious choice for it to be republished for...

    £150

  10. OSTROVSKII, Aleksandr Nikolaevich.

    Bednaia Nevesta, komediia v piati deistviiakh [The poor bride, a comedy in five acts].

    Moscow, Stepanova, 1852

    First edition. A rare early play by one of the leading Russian playwrights of the 19th century. Ostrovsky’s second play, The Poor Bride, was first published in the literary magazine The Muscovite (edited by Mikhail Pogodin) earlier in 1852. Initially banned from production by the censor, it was one...

    £6500

  11. OZEROV, Vladislav Aleksandrovich.

    Sochineniia … Chast’ pervaia [–vtoraia] [Works … Part one [–two]].

    St Petersburg, Imperial Theatre, 1817 [-1816].

    One of two rival collected editions published after Ozerov’s death in 1816, rare, including the first appearance of the author’s poetry and his last tragedy Poliksena.

    £1800

  12. PASTERNAK, Boris Leonidovich (translator). BARATASHVILI, Nikoloz.

    Stikhotvoreniia v perevode Borisa Pasternaka [Poems in...

    Moscow, “Pravda”, 1946.

    First edition, very rare. Nikoloz Baratashvili (1817–1845) is ‘the greatest of the Georgian Romantic poets … [and] one of the first Georgians to fire a modern nationalism with European Romanticism … He died of malaria, unmourned and unpublished. His influence was long delayed, until...

    £1100

  13. PASTERNAK, Boris Leonidovich.

    Dve knigi. Stikhi [Two Books. Poems].

    Moscow-Leningrad, Gosizdat, 1927.

    First collected edition of Pasternak’s two major early collections of verse, My Sister Life (1922) and Themes and Variations (1923).

    £900

  14. PASTERNAK, Boris Leonidovich.

    Na rannikh poezdakh [On early trains].

    Moscow, “Sovetskii pisatel’”, 1943.

    First edition of this collection of poems from the years 1936 to 1941.

    £750

  15. PASTERNAK, Boris Leonidovich.

    Zemnoi prostor [Expanses of Land].

    Moscow, “Sovetskii pisatel’”, 1945.

    First edition of Pasternak’s war poems.

    £400

  16. PASTERNAK, Boris Leonidovich, translator.

    Gruzinskie Poety [Georgian Poets].

    Moscow, Sovestskii pisatel’, 1946.

    First edition, comprising Pasternak’s translations of most of the surviving œuvre of Nik’oloz Baratashvili, first published in a very rare volume earlier in the year, and here supplemented by new translations of works by Ak’ak’i Tseretili, Vazha Pshavela (pseud. of Luka...

    £750

  17. PETNIKOV, Grigorii Nikolaevich.

    Kniga Marii zazhgi snega [The Book of ‘Mary Light the Snows’].

    St Petersburg, “Liren’”, 1920.

    First edition of the last of the poet-translator’s books to be published by Liren’, the publishing house he founded together with Aseev in 1914.

    £100

  18. PILNIAK, Boris, pseud. [Boris Andreevich VOGAU].

    Povesti o chernom khlebe [Stories about black bread].

    Moscow & St. Petersburg, “Krug”, 1923.

    First edition, comprising two short stories, ‘Volki’ (Wolves) and ‘Chernyi Khleb’ (Black bread), written in Kolomna in 1922-3.

    £300

  19. PILNIAK, Boris, pseud. [Boris Andreevich VOGAU].

    Rasplesnutoe vremia. Rasskazy [Spilled time. Stories].

    Moscow and Leningrad, Gosizdat, 1927.

    First edition of a collection of short stories previously published only in periodicals (in 1925-7); this collection represents a shift in Pilniak’s style towards social realism – most of the stories are grouped under the general heading ‘Recurring tales’.

    £350

  20. ‘PILNIAK, Boris’, [pseud. Boris Andreevich VOGAU].

    Kamni i Korni [Rocks and roots].

    Moscow, SovLit, 1934.

    First edition in book form, a strange modernist travelogue in which Pilniak critically reworks his earlier Korni iaponskago solntsa (Roots of the Japanese Sun, 1927).

    £300