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.
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‘A.C.’ and ‘A.L.C.’
Dialogue entre un médecin et un homme du monde …
Paris, chez les marchands de nouveautés, 1824.
Rare first edition of this entertaining satirical dialogue between ‘M. de B.’ and ‘le docteur X’, taking a swipe at contemporary medicine and the medical profession.
£375
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AESOP; Augustin LEGRAND, illustrator.
Ésope en bel humeur, ou fables d’Ésope, en vaudeville, avec gravures … et calendrier...
Paris, Batilliot frères, [c. 1795–1800].
A French verse Aesop to be sung to popular tunes, with fine plates by Legrand printed in bright orange.
£950
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[ANON.]
Le moine galant, ou la vie de Don F… Bernardin, ecrite par lui-même.
[S.l., s.n.,] 1756.
Scarce first edition of this satirical ‘autobiography’ of a pleasure-driven law student-turned-monk, replete with amorous adventures.
£450
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AZAÏS, Gabriel, and Charles LABOR.
Illustrated manuscript volume of poetry, comprising ‘Vingt-six janvier 1836’ by...
Béziers, not before 1836.
A charming presentation volume, with French poems by the Occitan scholars Azaïs (1805–1888) and Labor (1813–1900), and fine vignette sketches.
£1750
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BALZAC, Honoré de, and Fedor Kuz’mich SOLOGBUB, pseud. [Fedor TETERNIKOV], translator.
Ozornye skazki [Contes...
Petersburg, “Poliarnaia Zvezda”, 1922.
First edition, very rare, of Sologub’s translation of two of Balzac’s satirical Contes drolatiques, ‘The fair Imperia’ and ‘The fair Imperia married’.
£500
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BAUDELAIRE, Charles.
Oeuvres complètes … Les Fleurs du mal.
Paris, Alphonse Lemerre, [1917?].
An attractive early twentieth-century edition of Les Fleurs du mal, owned by the young Graham Pollard before going up to Oxford in 1921.
£250
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BECQUE, Henry.
Les Corbeaux, pièce en quatre actes.
Paris, Tresse, [1882].
First and second editions of Becque’s innovative realist drama, inscribed by the author on the first half-title to ‘mon cher [Jules-Charles] Truffier’, with authorial marks and annotations on thirty-three pages in the second edition showing changes made for performance.
£2000
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[BILLARDON DE SAUVIGNY, Edme-Louis.]
Voyage de Madame et de Madame Victoire.
Lunéville, Messuy, [1761].
Four rare works describing visits by the princesses Adélaïde and Victoire, daughters of Louis XV and Marie Leszczyńska, to Lunéville and Nancy, in northeastern France, in 1761 and 1762, to see their grandfather Stanisław I Leszczyński, former King of Poland and then Duke of Lorraine.
£975
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[BOUDIER DE VILLEMERT, Pierre-Joseph.]
L’Andrometrie, ou examen philosophique de l’homme. Par Monsieur l’Abbé de Villemaire.
Paris, chez Brunet, 1753.
First editions of two scarce works by the philosopher, moralist, and Parisian avocat Boudier de Villemert (1716–1801), best known as the author of L’Ami des Femmes, Le monde joué involving visits from extra-terrestrials both in ancient times and in the eighteenth century.
£2500
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[BOUREAU-DESLANDES, André-François.]
Pigmalion, ou la statue animée.
‘A Londres, chez Samuel Harding’, 1741.
A very interesting sammelband of scarce works encompassing materialism clothed as myth, astronomy, and Parisian polite society.
£1250
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BUNAND, Antonin.
Poésies …
Paris, Alphonse Lemerre, 1887.
Presentation copy of Bunand’s Plein air, an uncommon collection of verse dedicated to Prudhomme and others; this copy was inscribed to William Michael Rossetti in 1889, and later bound with other works including one by his father.
£750
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CAREL DE SAINTE-GARDE, Jacques.
Les Sarrazins chassez de France. Poëme heroïque. Premiere partie.
Paris, Claude Barbin, 1667.
First edition, very rare, of this poetic account of the expulsion of the Saracens from France by Childebrand I and Charles Martel, written by Jacques Carel de Sainte Garde, almoner and counsellor to Louis XIV.
£850
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[COLETTE.] ‘WILLY’, pseud. [Henri GAUTHIER-VILLARS].
En Bombe. Roman modern. Illustrations photographiques.
Paris, Nilsson, Per Lamm, [1904].
First edition of these vignettes of bohemian life in fin-de-siècle Paris by author and critic Willy, illustrated by nearly one hundred photographs of the author himself, as well as Marcel Boulestin, Marcelle Rossat, and Colette’s famous French bulldog, Toby-Chien.
£600
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CORNEILLE, Pierre.
Nicomède tragedie.
Rouen, Laurens Maurry, and Paris, Guillaume de Luyne, 1653.
Rare second edition (first 1651) of Corneille’s tragedy of sibling rivalry and the conflict of political and aristocratic ideals, set in Rome in the second century BC.
£750
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CORNEILLE, Thomas.
Il Pirro, tragedia … tradotta dal francese e recitata da’ signori cavalieri del Collegio Clementino nelle...
Bologna, Longhi, [1700?].
A very uncommon set of eight early translations by Thomas Corneille (1625–1709), the younger brother of Pierre, 'le Grand Corneille', published in the context of the Italian Accademie.
£750
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[COTIN, Charles, Abbé.]
‘Enigmes du temps.’
[France, c. 1750.]
A manuscript compendium of 237 French enigmas, largely drawn from Charles Cotin’s pioneering and popular Recueil des énigmes de ce temps, first published in 1646.
£1250
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[COURTESAN.]
Les confessions d’une courtisane devenue philosophe.
‘London’ and Brussels, Le Francq, 1784.
First edition (another appeared in the same year with a 'Londres et se trouve à Paris' imprint) of this anonymous novel describing the ascent (or perhaps descent) of a courtesan into the world of the philosophe.
£850
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[CULANT-CIRÉ, René Alexandre, Marquis de.]
Recueil de fables, contes, epigrammes & pensées diverses de Monsieur le M. de...
‘The Hague’ [Paris?], 1767.
First collected edition, very rare, of various writings on diverse subjects by Culant-Ciré, including the first appearance of several of his works, including Symbole raisonné du philosophe, a satirical attempt at proving the necessity of the existence of God, and the comedy L’impudent.
£650
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DAUDET, Alphonse.
Lettres de mon moulin. Impressions et souvenirs.
Paris, J. Hetzel et Cie, [1869].
First edition, rare, the issue arbitrarily designated ‘deuxième édition’ but published alongside the first, of Letters from my Windmill, Daudet’s celebrated sketches of Provençal life.
£2500
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[DE GRAAFT, attributed.]
Avantures secrettes, et plaisantes. Recueillies par Monsieur de G***.
Brussels, George de Backer, 1696.
Scarce first Brussels edition, published in the same year as the Paris edition, of this collection of twenty-four amorous and amusing tales set during the reign of Louis XIV, purporting to be true stories with the names changed to protect the characters’ identities.
£375