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  1. HOGG, James.

    The Pilgrims of the Sun; a Poem …

    London, Printed for John Murray … and William Blackwood … Edinburgh, 1815.

    First edition, first issue, of a long poem dedicated to Byron ‘Not for thy crabbed state-creed, wayward wight, / Thy noble lineage, nor they virtues high’, but for ‘thy bold and native energy’. The titular poem is the narrative of a young local woman Mary Lee, and her journey to a heavenly...

    £200

  2. [JOHNSON, Samuel].

    A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. London: Printed for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell … 1775.

    London: Printed for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell … 1775

    Unacknowledged second edition. Two thousand copies of the first edition were printed as far as sheet R when Strahan, sensing the demand, decided to increase the press run to four thousand. The 2000 overrun sheets, T-Z and 2A-2B, and a reprint of the earlier sheets A-D and F-R, may be identified...

    £350

  3. KELLY, James.

    Poems.

    Glasgow, Printed by Aird & Coghill, and sold by John Menzies & Co, 1888.

    First edition, a presentation copy, of a collection of poems many of which were written ‘before the age of nineteen’. There are a number of sonnets, as well as devotional and nature poetry, some folksongs, and topographical works on e.g. the Isle of Arran.

    £100

  4. BOSWELL, James.

    The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, with Samuel Johnson, LL. D. … Containing some poetical Pieces by Dr....

    London, Printed by Henry Baldwin, for Charles Dilly …, 1785.

    First edition. The text of the Journal was largely completed in 1773 from the diary Boswell kept while travelling in Scotland; publication was, however, delayed until after Johnson’s death. The advertisement for Boswell’s Life of Johnson on the errata leaf announces that the...

    £375

  5. TO THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND,

    who are in Place to do Justice, and to break the Bonds of the oppressed. A Narrative of the cruel,...

    London, Printed for Thomas Simmons …, 1659.

    First edition, rare, a list of Quaker victims of persecution in Ireland with details of their sufferings. The pamphlet was published and undersigned by a group of the victims including the country’s reputed first Quaker, William Edmondson, and Thomas Holme, who went on to publish A Brief...

    £300

  6. GUMILEV, Nikolai Stepanovich.

    Kolchan. 4-ia kniga stikhov. Izdanie vtoroe [The Quiver. Fourth book of Poems. Second edition]....

    [Second edition]. Petropolis, Berlin, 1923.

    Second edition of the collection of poems with which Gumilev ‘reached the peak of his powers’ (Bristol, A History of Russian Poetry, p. 207).

    £250

  7. RADIUS, J.

    S. C. de. Characteristic Features of Russian and Slavic Poetry, with Specimens, translated by English Authors …

    London, printed by Seyfang & Co. [for the author], 1854.

    First and only edition. This little book contains what must be some of the earliest translations of Ukrainian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Slovene, Slovak, and Sorb verse into English. It certainly offers an early example of comparative Slavonic studies. Most of the specimens, however, are Russian, among...

    £325

  8. [PUSHKIN, Alexander.]

    LÉNSTRÖM, Carl Julius. Alexander Puschkin. Rysslands Byron. Ett Skaldeporträtt … första [-sednare]...

    Uppsala, Leffler och Sebell; 1841.

    First edition, very rare, of a study of Pushkin by the Swedish literary historian C. J. Lénström delivered at the Gustavian Auditorium on 8 December 1841.

    £350

  9. EHRENBURG, Ilya Grigorievich.

    Огонь [‘Ogon’; ‘Fire’].

    [Gomel,] “Veka i Dni”, 1919.

    First edition of this collection of poems, with a long signed presentation inscription in Russian on title-page to the actress Varvara Alekseeva-Meskhieva in pencil, covering the title-page: ‘To dear Varvara Vladimirovna Alekseeva-Meskhieva, from the heart, Ehrenburg. On the eve of departure...

    £2000

  10. [HERZEN, Aleksandr Ivanovich]. ISKANDER (pseud.).

    Prervannye razskazy… Izdanie vtoroe - ispravlennoe avtorom [Interrupted...

    London, Trübner & Co., 1857.

    Second, corrected edition of this collection of four short stories, which had initially been published in Russian periodicals, and were first collected and published as one volume in London in 1854.

    £1250

  11. [BELYI, Andrei, pseud. [Boris Nikolaevich BUGAEV], et al.]

    Kak my pishem [How we write].

    Leningrad, Izdatel’stvo pisatelei, [1930].

    First edition of these sketches on the art of writing, published as an aid to young writers, with contributions from Bely, Gorky, Zamyatin, Zoshchenko, Kaverin, Lavrenev, Libedinsky, Nikitin, Pilnyak, Slonimsky, Tikhonov, Aleksei Tolstoy, Tynyanov, Fedin, Olga Forsh, Chapygin, Shishkov, and Shklovsky.

    £450

  12. DU BOSC, Jacques.

    L’onneste femme, divisée en trois parties. Reveue, corrigée et augmentée en cette derniere edition …

    Lyon, Antoine Cellier, 1661.

    Very rare Lyon edition of Du Bosc’s famous ‘feminist’ work.

    £450

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

    Otello, venetsianskii mavr. Perevod s angliiskogo...

    Moscow, Ogiz, 1945.

    First edition of Pasternak’s translation. ‘Pasternak was attached to Shakespeare for all his creative life. In his best early verse collection My Sister Life (pub. 1922), the poem “English Lessons” featured Desdemona and Ophelia “letting their passions slip from their shoulders...

    £1000

  14. [ALMANACK.]

    Al’manakh dlia vsekh. Kniga vtoraia [Almanack for all. Second book].

    St Petersburg, “Novyi zhurnal dlia vsekh”, 1911.

    First edition, rare, the second of two annual literary almanacks with this title, with poems by Blok, Gorodetsky and Kuzmin, and short fiction by Chulkov, Gusev, Count Aleksei Nikolaevich Tolstoy and Ivan Poroshin.

    £200

  15. HESSE, Hermann.

    Siddhartha. Eine indische Dichtung.

    Berlin, S. Fischer Verlag, 1922.

    First edition of Hesse’s most celebrated work, the beautiful story of a young Brahmin’s search for the meaning of life on earth at the time of the Gautama Buddha. It is considered by many to be Hesse’s masterpiece, and its English translation in the 1950s became a spiritual guide to the generation...

    £1200

  16. [POETS’ GUILD.]

    Tsekh Poetov I [ and II-III].

    Berlin, S. Efron, 1922[-3].

    First edition. The first Poets’ Guild had been formed in 1911 with members including Gumilev, Gorodetsky and Mandelstam, the core of whom became known as the Acmeists.

    £1250

  17. EHRENBURG, Il’ia Grigorievich.

    Ogon’ [Fire].

    [Gomel], “Veka i Dni”, 1919.

    First edition. Although primarily known in the West as a prose writer and journalist (his novel Ottepel’ (The Thaw, 1954) coined the term for the era in the post-Stalin period), Ehrenburg (1891–1967) in fact wrote poetry all his life. The title for this collection, published...

    £200

  18. [FIREFIGHTING.]

    Verneuerte Feuer-Ordnung / Eines edlen ehrenvesten Rahts allhie zi Nürnberg / wie es zur Zeit / wann bey Tag oder...

    Nuremberg, Michael Endter, 1656.

    Scarce expanded edition of this guide to preventing and mitigating fires in Nuremberg, bound using a musical manuscript fragment and Hebrew printed waste.

    £3500

  19. EPIPHANIUS.

    Κατα αιρεσεων ογδοηκοτα το επικληθεν Παναριον … Contra octoginta haereses...

    Basel, [Johann Herwagen, 1544].

    Editio princeps of the Greek text of Epiphanius’s great compendium of heresies, in a particularly attractive and well-preserved contemporary pigskin binding.

    £5000

  20. BUXTON, Thomas Fowell.

    The African Slave Trade and its Remedy …

    London, John Murray, 1840.

    First complete edition of the principal anti-slavery work of the politician and abolitionist Thomas Fowell Buxton (1786–1845), a presentation copy to a fellow abolitionist, James Pearson, dated 5 November 1840.

    £750