Foreign Literature

Contact Donovan Rees

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. [LA VIGNE, André de, and Octavien de SAINT-GELAIS.]

    Le vergier dhonneur nouvellement imprime...

    [Paris, Pierre le Dru and Jean Petit, 1503.]

    Extremely rare first edition of the Vergier...

    £120000

  2. [CHAMPIER, Symphorien.]

    La vie & les gestes du preux chevalier...

    Lyons, Olivier Arnoullet, [(colophon:)...

    A rare edition of Champier’s account...

    £9500

  3. LA VIGNE, André de.

    Le vergier dhonneur nouvellement imprime...

    [(Colophon:) Paris, Philippe le Noir],...

    George Dunn’s copy of a rare early edition...

    £9500

  4. GAGUIN, Robert.

    La mer des croniques et mirouer hystorial...

    Paris, [Bernard Aubry for] Jacques Nyverd,...

    Very rare Paris vernacular edition (first...

    £8500

  5. PUSHKIN, Aleksandr Sergeevich.

    Sochineniia A. S. Pushkina. Tom pervyi...

    St Petersburg, Eduard Prats, 1859-60.

    Third collected edition of the works of...

    £8000

  6. HUGO, Victor.

    Notre-Dame de Paris. Par Victor Hugo. Troisième...

    Paris, Charles Gosselin, 1831.

    First edition, third issue, of Victor Hugo’s...

    £7500

  7. SCHUBERT, Franz, composer

    A fine contemporary volume of ten works...

    Vienna, 1821-1833. 

    A rare collection of Schubert Lieder...

    £7500

  8. SA‘DI, Abu ‘Abd Allah Musharrif al-Din (Adam OLEARIUS, translator). 

    Persianischer Rosenthal.  In welchen viel...

    Schleswig, Johann Holwein for Johann Nauman...

    Rare first illustrated edition, and the...

    £6500

  9. [GOETHE.] 

    REICHARDT, Johann Friedrich.  Goethe’s...

    Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, [1809–11]. 

    Very rare first complete edition of Reichardt’s...

    £6500

  10. BERRYAT, Jean, et al., editors.

    Receuil de Mémoires, ou Collection de...

    Dijon, Auxerre, Paris and Liège, F. Desventes,...

    The scarce first collected edition of these...

    £6000

  11. APPIA, Béatrice.

    A fine collection of manuscript and typescript...

    Paris, 1934–6.

    An extraordinary series of love letters,...

    £5000

  12. PISEMSKII, Aleksei Feofilaktovich.

    Povesti i razskazy … v trekh chastiakh...

    Moscow, Stepanova, 1853.

    Very rare first collected edition of the...

    £4800

  13. ERNST, Max.

    Une semaine de bonté ou les sept éléments...

    Paris, Éditions Jeanne Bucher, 1934.

    First edition, no. 706 of 800 copies on...

    £4500

  14. FERDOWSĪ.

    Shāhnāmah.

    Tehran, Amir Kabir, AH 1350 [AD 1971].

    A lavishly produced edition of the Shāhnāmah...

    £4000

  15. OSTROVSKY, Aleksandr Nikolaevich.

    Бѣдная Невѣста. Бѣдная...

    Moscow, Stepanov, 1852.

    First separate edition, rare, of the second...

    £4000

  16. [TORGA, Miguel, pseud.] ROCHA, Adolpho Correia da.

    Abismo. Poemas.

    [Coimbra, “Atlantida”, 1932.]

    First (and only) edition of one of the...

    £3500

  17. KHARMS, Daniil Ivanovich, translator. BUSCH, Wilhelm.

    Plikh i Pliukh [Plisch und Plum].

    Moscow, Detizdat, 1937.

    First edition in book form, very rare,...

    £3000

  18. OLESHA, Iurii Karlovich.

    Zavist’. Roman, s risunkami Natana Al’tman...

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

    First edition of this famous short satirical...

    £3000

  19. PISEMSKII, Aleksei Feofilaktovich.

    Ocherki iz krest’ianskago byta [Sketches...

    St Petersburg, [A. Dmitriev,] 1856.

    First edition: ‘one of Pisemsky’s most...

    £3000

  20. TOLSTOY, Lev Nikolaevich.

    Khoziain i rabotnik. Povest’ [Master...

    St Petersburg, V.S. Balashev and Co.,...

    One of the earliest printings of one of...

    £3000