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.

 
  1. ROZENGEIM, Mikhail Pavlovich.

    Stikhotvoreniia [Poems] …

    St Petersburg, Artillery Department Press,...

    First edition of Rozengeim’s first book,...

    £2000

  2. [RUSSIAN POETRY.]

    Izbrannye stikhi russkikh poetov. Seriia...

    [St Petersburg, Stasiulevich,] 1914.

    First edition of a patriotic anthology...

    £250

  3. SALTYKOV-SHCHEDRIN, Mikhail Yevgrafovich.

    Blagonamerennyia rechi. Tom I [– II]...

    St Petersburg, A.A. Kraevsky, 1876.

    First edition of these social and political...

    £1800

  4. SCHNITZLER, Jean-Henri.

    Rostopchin i Kutuzov. Rossiia v 1812 godu....

    St. Petersburg, “Luch”, 1912

    First edition in Russian of La Russie en...

    £300

  5. SELVINSKII, Il’ia Lvovich.

    Rekordy [Records].

    Moscow, “Uzel”, 1926.

    First edition, of Ilya Selvinsky’s (1899–1968)...

    £300

  6. SELVINSKII, Ilia Lvovich.

    Ulialaevshchina: epopeia [The Ulialaev...

    Moscow, Gosizdat “Khudozhestvennaia...

    Fourth edition (first, 1927) of Sel’vinskii’s...

    £100

  7. SHAGINYAN, Marietta Sergeevna.

    O blazhenstve imushchago: poeziia Z.N....

    Moscow, “Al’tsiona”, [1912].

    First edition, a critical essay by Shaginian...

    £350

  8. SHAGINYAN, Marietta Sergeevna.

    Puteshestvie v Veimar [Journey to Weimar].

    Moscow & Petrograd, Gosizdat, 1923.

    First edition of Shaginyan’s account...

    £600

  9. SHAGINYAN, Marietta Sergeevna.

    Gëte [Goethe].

    Moscow and Leningrad, Academy of Sciences...

    First edition of Marietta Sergeevna Shaginyan’s...

    £350

  10. SHAKESPEARE, William, and Boris Leonidovich PASTERNAK, translator.

    Otello, venetsianskii mavr. Perevod s angliiskogo...

    Moscow, Ogiz, 1945.

    First edition of Pasternak’s translation....

    £1000

  11. SHELLEY, Percy Bysshe, and Konstantin Dmitrievich BALMONT, translator.

    Sochineniia Shelli... Vypusk 7-i, Chenchi,...

    Moscow, Mamontov, 1899.

    First edition of Balmont’s translation...

    £900

  12. [SHERSHENEVICH, Vadim Gabrielevich, translator and editor.] VILDRAC, Charles, and Georges DUHAMEL.

    Teoriia svobodnogo stikha (zametki o poeticheskoi...

    Moscow, “Imazhinisty”, 1920.

    First edition of Shershenevich’s translation...

    £150

  13. SHERSHENEVICH, Vadim Gabrielevich.

    Bystr’. Monologicheskaia drama [Rapids....

    Moscow, “Pleiady”, 1916.

    First edition, one of 500 numbered copies,...

    £350

  14. SHIRMAN, Grigorii Iakovlevich.

    ...

    Moscow, All-Russian Union of Poets, 1926.

    First edition. A friend of Esenin and...

    £250

  15. SHKAPSKAIA, Maria Mikhailovna.

    Krov’-ruda [Blood-ore].

    St Petersburg & Berlin, Epokha, 1922.

    First edition of a collection of twenty-one...

    £300

  16. SHKAPSKAIA, Mariia Mikhailovna.

    Chas vechernii. Stikhi (1913–1917) [The...

    Petrograd, “Mysl’”, 1922.

    First edition of Maria Shkapskaya’s second...

    £350

  17. SHKAPSKAIA, Mariia Mikhailovna.

    Iav’. Poema [Reality. A poem].

    Moscow & St Petersburg, “Krug”, 1923.

    First edition, written by the poet on a...

    £400

  18. SHKAPSKAIA, Mariia Mikhailovna.

    Mater Dolorosa.

    St. Petersburg, [Neopalimaia Kupina], 1921.

    First edition of Maria Shkapskaya’s first...

    £450

  19. SIDOROV, Gurii Aleksandrovich.

    Vedro ognia [A bucket of fire].

    Moscow, [All-Russian Union of Poets, 1920].

    £150

  20. SKABICHEVSKII, Aleksandr Mikhailovich.

    Ocherki istorii russkoi tsenzury (1700-1863...

    St Petersburg, F. Pavlenkov, 1892.

    First edition of the critic and journalist...

    £500