Foreign Literature

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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. CASTIGLIONE, Baldassare.

    Il libro del cortegiano … nuovamente...

    Venice, Gabriele Giolito de’ Ferrari, 1544.

    Second Giolito edition of the classic Renaissance...

    £800

  2. BIZZARRI, Pietro.

    Petri Bizzari varia opuscula, quorum indicem...

    Venice, [Paolo Manuzio], 1565.

    First edition of a collection of treatises,...

    £2500

  3. MARINO, Giambattista; Gasparo MURTOLA.

    La Murtoleide fischiate del cavalier Marino...

    ‘Norinbergh’ [i.e. Venice], Ioseph...

    Rare first edition of these Baroque burlesque...

    £900

  4. [WEDDING POETRY.]

    Applausi alli felicissimi sponsali dell’illustrissimo...

    Siena, Stamperia del Pubblico, 1699.

    Seemingly unrecorded collection of sonnets...

    £350

  5. ARMINESI, Rocco degli.

    Attila flagelum Dei, tradotto dalla vera...

    Venice, Omobon Bettanino, [mid-eighteenth...

    Very rare eighteenth-century edition of...

    £600

  6. [GUARINI, Giovanni Battista.]

    Il Pastor Fido.

    ‘In Parigi, appresso Tomaso Iolly, 1706’.

    Scarce Parisian edition of Guarini’s...

    £175

  7. ARIOSTO, Ludovico.

    Orlando furioso.

    Birmingham, John Baskerville for Pietro...

    A handsomely bound set of the attractive...

    £1850

  8. [TRENTO, Giulio].

    Gli spiriti. Paragoni poetici. Dialogo...

    Treviso, G. Trento, [1788].

    Only edition, mentioned only in one or...

    £300

  9. [NAPOLEONIC ITALY.] 

    Alla società delle gentilissime signore...

    Turin, Giacomo Fea, 1799.

    An unrecorded sonnet addressed to the to...

    £375

  10. MUSESTI, Piero; Giovammaria FEBRARI, translator.

    Gesta di Napoleone I. imperator de’...

    Brescia, Tipografia dipartimentale, 1805.

    Uncommon first and only edition of this...

    £550

  11. [SPADAZZI, Carlo, editor.]

    Per le nozze Varano-Dolfin. Rime.

    Venice, Stamperia Palese, 1807.

    First and only edition of a collection...

    £350

  12. PAZZI, Antonio de, and Torquato TASSO. 

    Stanze inedite di Antonio de Pazzi e di...

    Venice, Picotti, 1810.

    Scarce first edition of verses ‘in blame...

    £200

  13. [NUPTIALIA.]

    Bartolomeo MOLAJONI.  Alla neogama donzella...

    Viterbo, brothers Poggiarelli, 1811. 

    Seemingly unrecorded sonnet addressed to...

    £275

  14. GOLDONI, Carlo.

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

    Livorno, Assunto Barbani, 1816.

    First edition printed in Italy of a collection...

    £175

  15. PIEROTTI, A. 

    Il cervello e la difesa delle donne sestine...

    Florence, N. Fabbrini, 1842. 

    First and only edition, very rare, of this...

    £375

  16. MELECRINIS, Maria Teresa. 

    Le voci del cuore a Maria Teresa Melecrinis...

    Naples, stamperia dell' Iride, 1846. 

    Very rare collection of odes and sonnets...

    £175

  17. ROSINI, Giovanni. 

    Alla memoria di Maria Antinori vedova del...

    Pisa, Niccolò Capurro, 1852. 

    Scarce first and only edition of this poem...

    £275

  18. [JUVENILIA.]

    Racconti per gli adolescenti. Con tavole...

    Trieste, ‘Sezione Letterario-Artistica...

    First and only edition, extremely rare,...

    £350

  19. [CARDUCCI, Giosuè, Olindo GUERRINI, et al., editors.] 

    Il Matto.  Anno I – Num. 1 [– Num. 13;...

    Bologna, 19 April [– 29 June] 1874. 

    Very rare complete run of this short-lived...

    £1000

  20. BARTOLI, Adolfo.

    Scenari inediti della Commedia dell’arte....

    Florence, Sansoni, 1880.

    Rare first edition, one of only 350 copies,...

    £500