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. SKABICHEVSKII, Aleksandr Mikhailovich.

    Ocherki istorii russkoi tsenzury (1700-1863...

    St Petersburg, F. Pavlenkov, 1892.

    First edition of the critic and journalist...

    £500

  2. SOLOGUB, Fedor Kuzmich, pseud. [Fedor TETERNIKOV].

    Koster dorozhnyi [A wayside fire].

    Moscow and Petrograd, [‘Tvorchestvo’,]...

    First edition, containing three cycles...

    £550

  3. SOLZHENITSYN, Aleksandr Isaevich.

    Pis’mo vozhdiam Sovetskogo Soiuza [Letter...

    Paris, YMCA, 1974.

    First printed edition of a letter written...

    £150

  4. SOLZHENITSYN, Aleksandr Isaevich.

    Amerikanskiie rechi [American speeches].

    Paris, YMCA, 1975.

    First edition, comprising three speeches...

    £150

  5. STEPNIAK-KRAVCHINSKII, Sergius Mikhailovich.

    Подпольная Россiя ч. 1....

    Kiev, Otdel soldatskoi kooperatsii K....

    Extremely rare Civil War edition (first...

    £125

  6. [ST PETERSBURG SUBSCRIPTION LIBRARY.] HOLTEI, Karl Eduard von.

    Lenore. Vaterländisches Schauspiel mit...

    Berlin, Duncker and Humblot, 1829.

    First edition of one of Holtei’s best-known...

    £280

  7. TAMAMSHEV, Aleksandr Artem’evich.

    Iz plamia i sveta [From the Flame and...

    Petrograd, [R. Golike & A. Vil’borg,] 1918.

    First edition. The title is taken from...

    £250

  8. TARSIS, Valerii Iakovlevich.

    Skazanie o sinei mukhe. Krasnoe i chernoe...

    Frankfurt am Main, Posev, 1963.

    First edition in Russian of Tarsis’ first...

    £90

  9. TOLSTOY, Aleksei Nikolaevich.

    Lirika.

    St Petersburg, [S.M. Muller,] 1907.

    First edition, very rare: ‘the first...

    £1000

  10. TOLSTOY, Count Aleksei Konstantinovich.

    Kniaz’ Serebrianyi. Povest’ vremen...

    Moscow, V. G. Got’e [Gautier], 1892.

    First edition thus, printed on papier vélin...

    £1600

  11. TOLSTOY, Count Aleksei Konstantinovich.

    Smert’ Ioanna Groznago, tragediia v piati...

    St Petersburg, Naval Ministry Press, 1866.

    First edition: the first in the great trilogy...

    £2000

  12. TOLSTOY, Lev Nikolaevich.

    Khoziain i rabotnik. Povest’ [Master...

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

    One of the earliest printings of one of...

    £3000

  13. [TOLSTOY, Lev Nikolaevich.] BIRIUKOV, Pavel Ivanovich (editor).

    Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoi. Biografiia. Sostavil...

    Moscow, Pechkovsky, ‘Posrednik’, 1906[-8].

    First edition, rare, of the first authorised...

    £1800

  14. [TOLSTOY, Lev Nikolaevich.] ORLOV, Nikolai.

    Russkie Muzhiki. Kartiny khudozhnika N....

    St Petersburg, R. Golik & A. Vilborg, 1909.

    First and only edition of this album of...

    £1200

  15. TOLSTOY, Lev Nikolaevich.

    Posmertnyia zapiski startsa Fedora Kuz’micha...

    St Petersburg, V. Vrublevskii, 1912.

    First edition, very rare, of an unfinished...

    £1750

  16. TOLSTOY, Lev Nikolaevich.

    Resurrection. A novel.

    London, The Brotherhood Publishing Co., 1900.

    Variant issue of the second edition in...

    £550

  17. TOLSTOY, Lev Nikolaevich.

    Живой Трупъ. Драма въ...

    Moscow, A. Ia. Petrov, [1911].

    One of the earliest printings of Tolstoy’s...

    £1750

  18. TRETIAKOV, Sergei Mikhailovich.

    ...

    Moscow, “Ogonek”, 1926.

    First edition, very rare. Tretyakov wrote...

    £350

  19. TUGAN-BARANOSKIĬ, M. I.

    Sovremennyĭ sotsializm v svoem istoricheskom...

    St. Petersburg, Buduschnost’, 1906.

    First edition of Tugan-Baranoskiĭ’s...

    £350

  20. TUGAN-BARANOVSKII, Mikhail Ivanovich.

    Russkaia fabrika v proshlom’ i nastoiashchem’...

    St Petersburg, L. F. Pantelev, 1898.

    First edition thus, originally issued as...

    £850