Search results
-
DUMAS, Alexandre, père.
Maître Adam le Calabrais.
Paris, Dumont, 1840.
Rare first authorised edition of an early comic novel by Dumas, written in 1839, before he achieved fame as a novelist. This edition was preceded by an unauthorised printing in Brussels the previous year.
£500
-
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
-
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
-
[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
-
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
-
[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
-
[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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
LACTANTIUS.
Opera.
[Venice,] Vindelinus de Spira, 1472.
Magnificent incunable edition of the works of Lactantius, a fine product of the first Venetian press, established in 1469 by Johannes de Spira and continued by his brother Vindelinus from 1470 until 1473. This was the fifth impression of the works of Lactantius, the hugely successful North African...
£25000
-
SMITH, Albert.
A large archive of printed and manuscript material, including drafts of shows and lectures, including portions of...
[1820s to 1860s.]
Albert Richard Smith (1816–1860) trained as a surgeon but shortly afterwards turned to the world of letters, becoming a regular contributor to Bentley’s Miscellany and Punch; he adapted works by his friend Dickens for the theatre and edited The Man in the Moon (1847–9). ‘During...
£15000
-
BARCLAY, Alexander.
Part-printed commission as Comptroller of Customs in Philadelphia.
5 August, 1749.
After a dissolute youth and a period in the army, Alexander Barclay (1711–1771) had been made Comptroller of Customs at Philadelphia in 1749, a position almost certainly engineered by his father David Barclay (1682–1769) – it required a significant sum (£500) advanced in security. David Barclay,...
£850
-
AUGUSTINUS TRIUMPHUS [i.e. AUGUSTINUS de Ancona].
Summa de potestate ecclesiastica.
Augsburg, [Johann Schüssler,] 6 March 1473.
First edition of this highly important and influential magnum opus of political theory, a defence of papal supremacy.
£22500
-
DIODORUS Siculus.
Bibliothecae historicae libri XV. Hoc est, quotquot Graece extant de quadraginta quorum quinque nunc primum Latine...
Basel, Heinrich Petri, August 1559.
Important edition, the first to be overseen by Sébastien Castellion, of Diodorus’s influential ‘Historical library’.
£2500
-
TYRE, William, Archbishop of, and Giuseppe OROLOGGI (translator).
Historia della guerra sacra di Gierusalemme,...
Venice, Vincenzo Valgrisi, 1562.
First Italian edition of William of Tyre’s (1130–1186) important account of the first two crusades and of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, with the addition of a seventeenth-century manuscript detailing a uniquely Italian rendition of the tale of the Wandering Jew.
£2800
-
ZEVIANI, Giovanni Verardo.
Del flato a favore degl’ipocondriaci.
Verona, Antonio Andreoni, 1755.
Rare first edition of the first medical treatise on tympanites, a distention of the abdomen caused by the accumulation of gas in the gastro-intestinal tract, linking it with hypochondria and melancholy.
£650
-
MARLOWE, Christopher, and Konstantin BAL’MONT, translator.
Tragicheskaia istoriia doktora Fausta [The Tragedy...
Moscow, K.F. Nekrasov, 1912.
First edition in book form, scarce, of Balmont’s translation of Marlowe’s Faustus, first published over two issues of the journal Zhizn in 1898.
£500
-
ROMANOV, Panteleimon Sergeevich.
Rus’ [Russia] …
Moscow, M. & S. Sabashnikov, 1923–4.
First edition of the first two parts of an epic novel, which describes rural life in pre-Revolutionary Russia. Three more parts came out over the next 12 years; complete copies are very rare.
£1200
-
ROMANOV, Panteleimon Sergeevich.
...
[Moscow,] “Molodaia gvardiia”, 1927.
First edition, containing three stories: that of the title, Chelovecheskaia dusha (‘Human soul’), and Zvezdy (‘Stars’).
£400