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. GLOBA, Andrei Pavlovich.

    Korabli izdaleka [Ships from Afar].

    Moscow & Petrograd, 1922.

    First edition, an early collection by Globa...

    £100

  2. [GOETHE.] 

    REICHARDT, Johann Friedrich.  Goethe’s...

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

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

    £6500

  3. [GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von.] ECKERMANN, Johann Peter; Dmitry Vasilievich AVERKIEV, translator.

    Разговоры Гете, собранные...

    St Petersburg, A. S. Suvorin, 1891.

    First edition in Russian, very rare, of...

    £1500

  4. GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von.

    Stella. Ein Schauspiel für Liebende in...

    Berlin, August Mylius, 1776.

    First edition, scarce, of Goethe’s early...

    £1800

  5. GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von; Thomas HOLCROFT, translator.

    Herman and Dorothea. A Poem, from the German …

    London, Biggs and Cottle (Bristol), for...

    First edition in English of Hermann...

    £350

  6. GOETHE, Johan Wolfgang von; Boris Leonidovich PASTERNAK, translator

    Тайны [Tainy; ‘Die Geheimnisse’...

    Moscow, Izdatel’stvo Sovremennik, 1922. 

    First and only edition, very rare, of Pasternak’s...

    £1200

  7. GOGOL’, Nikolai Vasil’evich, and Louis VIARDOT (translator).

    Tarass Boulba… traduit du russe par Louis...

    Paris, Librairie de L. Hachette et Cie, 1853.

    First separate appearance of Gogol’s...

    £250

  8. GOLDONI, Carlo.

    Scelta di alcune commedie. Per uso de’...

    Livorno, Assunto Barbani, 1816.

    First edition printed in Italy of a collection...

    £175

  9. GOR’KII, Maksim, pseud. [Aleksei Maksimovich PESHKOV].

    [Cover title:] Byvshie liudi [Former...

    St Petersburg, “Znanie”, 1906.

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

    £1500

  10. GOR’KII, Maksim, pseud. [Aleksei Maksimovich PESHKOV].

    V stepi. – Druzhki [On the Steppes....

    Moscow, “Rodnaia rech’”, 1916

    An ephemeral edition of two early short...

    £200

  11. GOR’KII, Maksim, pseud. [Aleksei Maksimovich PESHKOV].

    ...

    Berlin, J. Ladyschnikow Verlag, [1918].

    Second edition (first 1906): Gorky’s...

    £300

  12. [GOR’KII, Maksim, pseud. [Aleksei Maksimovich PESHKOV], and Nikolai Stepanovich GUMILEV.]

    Ballady o Robin Gude [Ballads of Robin Hood].

    St Petersburg, “Vsemirnaia Literatura”,...

    First edition, very rare, of a collection...

    £900

  13. GOR’KII, Maksim, pseud. [Aleksei Maksimovich PESHKOV].

    ...

    Berlin, “Kniga”, 1925.

    First edition. ‘[Gorky’s] best novel,...

    £450

  14. GOR’KII, Maksim, pseud. [Aleksei Maksimovich PESHKOV].

    Starik. P’esa [The old man. A play].

    Berlin, J. Ladyschnikow, [1921].

    First edition, written 1915, but not premiered...

    £250

  15. GOR’KII, Maksim, pseud. [Aleksei Maksimovich PESHKOV].

    Zhaloby [Complaints].

    N.p., Rabochee Knigoizdatel’stvo, 1916.

    An ephemeral publication of a short story...

    £200

  16. GOR’KII, Maxim, pseud. [Aleksei Maksimovich PESHKOV].

    Katalog izdatel’stva “Vsemirnaia Literatura”...

    St Petersburg, “Vsemirnaia Literatura”,...

    A catalogue marking the launch of a series...

    £650

  17. GORODETSKII, Sergei Mitrofanovich.

    Iva. Piataia kniga stikhov [Willow....

    St Petersburg, ‘Shipovnik’, 1913.

    First edition. Well received by the critics,...

    £200

  18. GOUNOD, Charles François.

    A volume of ten songs bound together, all...

    London, 1870–3.

    Ten of Gounod’s London-published songs,...

    £2000

  19. [GOURAUD, Stéphane, known as:] GURO, Stepan Andreevich, chevalier de.

    Rech’ o deistvii prosveshcheniia na sostoianie...

    St Petersburg, Imperial Academy of Sciences,...

    First edition of an early speech on the...

    £400

  20. GRASS, Günter.

    Gleisdreieck.

    Darmstadt, Luchterhand, 1960.

    Rare first edition of this volume of poems...

    £100