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World literature
LAMMING, George. The Emigrants.London : 1954
First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the title page to his Spanish translator Roberto Márquez, "For Roberto, especially from George Lamming 1978." Márquez is a Puerto Rican literary scholar and translator who has published many works on Lamming.
Márquez (b.1942) has extensively marked up the text and provided...Learn More
CLAVELL, James. Shogun.New York : 1975
First edition of the best-selling historical novel, which has "probably conveyed more information about Japan to more people than all the combined writings of scholars, journalists, and novelists since the Pacific War" (Smith, p. xii). It inspired the miniseries of 1980 and 2024 and the musical of 1990.
The story is based on the life of...Learn More
SUDO, Nansui. Ippin issho: Shinso no kajin. = The Ladies of New Style.Tokyo : 1887
First edition in book form of this novel depicting Tokyo's prosperous future, written by an ardent political reformer. Its protagonist is a milkmaid who reads Herbert Spencer, discusses women's rights, and champions dietary reform. Notable events in the story include a contested election, a dynamite explosion, and a secret love affair in a faulty...Learn More
REMARQUE, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front.London : 1929
First edition in English, in the first state jacket with "German Opinions" on the front flap. The novel first appeared in late 1928 as a serial in the Vossische Zeitung and was published in book form in January 1929. This British edition was published in March 1929, three months before the US edition.
Remarque's elegy to the generation that...Learn More
HUYSMANS, J.-K. À rebours.Paris : 1884
First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author to his fellow French naturalist writer Paul Alexis on the half-title. Alexis was one of the contributors to the short story collection Les Soirées de Médan (1880), to which Huysmans and Émile Zola also contributed. This copy includes, bound-in, the iconic yellow wrappers, the source of...Learn More
BORGES, Jorge Luis. Poemas. 1922-1943.Buenos Aires : 1943
First edition of this collection of his early poetry. It includes his first three volumes - Fervor de Buenos Aires (1923), Luna de Enfrente (1925), and Cuaderno San Martín (1929) - along with some additional material drawn from journals and magazines.Learn More
BELL, Gertrude Lowthian (trans.). Poems from the Divan of Hafiz.London : 1897
First edition of Bell's widely respected translation of Hafiz, the 14th-century Sufi poet whose work is considered to represent "the zenith of Persian lyric poetry" (Encyclopaedia Iranica). Her second published work, it was also the first to appear under her own name. This copy is from the later issue; the first issue has the spine lettered and...Learn More
KIMURA, Shotaro, & Charlotte M. A. Peake. Sword and Blossom Poems from the Japanese. Done into English verse. Illustrated by Japanese Artists.Tokyo : [c.1914]
A complete set, formed from later printings as often, of this attractive trilogy. Around 1910, having issued each beautiful volume individually, Hasegawa began marketing sets in a wraparound case, as here, compiling these from available stocks of different printings.
The poems, composed in the short, unrhymed Chinese style, date from the...Learn More![Rubyiat [i.e. Rubaiyat] of Abu-Tayb-al-Mutanabi.](/image.pl?url=https%3a%2f%2fd3dzzbbvj9im7s.cloudfront.net%2fmedia%2fcatalog%2fproduct%2fcache%2feddd32ef720e909fecec8d69051e6d0d%2f1%2f4%2f141869.jpg&f=jpg&w=240)
MUTANABBI, Abu al-Tayyib al-; Amin BEDER (trans.) Rubyiat [i.e. Rubaiyat] of Abu-Tayb-al-Mutanabi.St Petersburg, Florida : 1945
First edition in English, presentation copy, inscribed on the front free endpaper, "Presented to. Lt. Selwa Keamy A.N.N. 756481, 255 General Hospital, A.P.O. 772 c/o Postmaster New York, from Amin Beder, 12-31-45". The recipient served with the US Army Nurse Corps. Scarce: just eight locations on WorldCat, all but one - American University of...Learn More
IBSEN, Henrik. Works.London : 1876-1900
First English editions printed in Britain, uniformly bound as a set, of Ibsen's drama.
"Until the late 1870s, when translations from the original Danish texts first became available, Ibsen's work was virtually unknown outside Scandinavia... His gradual and initially laborious introduction to England formed an inseparable part of the...Learn More
ČAPEK, Karel. Bílá nemoc (The White Plague).Prague : 1937
First edition. Written while Czechoslovakia was increasingly threatened by Nazi Germany, it depicts an unnamed country facing imminent attack and ravaged by a deadly plague. It was adapted in the same year into the film Skeleton on Horseback, directed by Hugo Haas.
"Completed shortly before Čapek's country collapsed under Hitler's...Learn More
SHAKESPEARE, William, and others. Beaux Arts Classics.Paris : [c.1910]
Édition de Deux Mondes, letter R from a total of 20 sets printed on Japan vellum paper. This collection of Shakespearean drama, Classical prose, and short French fiction, all published in English, is abundantly illustrated and elaborately bound.
The loosely inserted catalogue notes that this set originally belonged to Ellen S. L'Amoreaux...Learn More
GILES, Herbert A. (trans.). Chinese Poetry in English Verse.London : 1898
First edition, scarce in the original cloth in any condition, of this poetry anthology which influenced several members of the Bloomsbury Group. According to Lytton Strachey, the lyrics "look back upon love through a long vista of years which have smoothed away the agitations of romance and have brought with them the calm familiarity of happiness,...Learn More
HAGGARD, H. Rider. King Solomon's Mines.London : 1885
First edition of the author's best-known book, attractively bound. King Solomon's Mines was an instant success and was inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island (1883).
Haggard's adventure novel directly influenced several works, including Rudyard Kipling's "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888), Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World...Learn More
CAMUS, Albert. Typescript of his preface to Actualité: L'Espagne Libre, with a first edition of the journal.Paris : 1946
A hand-corrected typescript by Camus of his preface to the special Spanish issue of Actualité, along with a copy of the journal. L'Espagne Libre was edited by George Bataille and devoted exclusively to Spanish politics, economy, art, and culture.
The typescript shows several significant differences to the published version, including the...Learn More
JOHNSON, Kinchen (trans.). Chinese Folklore: Peiping Rhymes.Peiping : 1932
First edition, anthologizing 214 short songs and nursery rhymes collected in the streets of Beijing. Subjects range from animals, family, and food to love, proper social conduct (especially for women), and business. Each is printed in Chinese verse style and in English prose translation.
The translator, Zhang Zezhi (publishing under an...Learn More
MODERNISM IN CHINA. Founding issue of Yangzi jiang yuekan ("Yangtse Monthly").Shasi, Hubei : 1947
The opening instalment of this short-lived literary and social affairs periodical, no issues of which are recorded institutionally. Founded in Hubei province, Yangtse Monthly is emblematic of the flourishing of cultural, democratic media in post-war China, even as the country descended into civil war. The spirit of openness and possibility found...Learn More
CAO, Xueqin. Hung Lou Meng; or, the Dream of the Red Chamber. Translated by H. Bencraft Joly.Hong Kong : 1892-93
First edition of the first substantial translation into English of Cao Xueqin's famous novel, covering the first 56 chapters. A member of the British consular service in China, Bencraft Joly planned to translate the entire work but died after completing these first two books. His efforts were preceded only by translations of short sections....Learn More
ISHIGURO, Kazuo. Klara and The Sun.London : 2021
Signed limited edition, number 176 of 205 copies specially bound and signed by the author.Learn More
SHELTON, Flora Beal. Folk Tales of Tibet.Dallas : 1951
First edition thus, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper recto, "To Mr and Mrs E. W. Tanner, in memory of the pleasant hours I spent in their home. Sincerely, Mrs A. L. Shelton (the stories are really for their grandchildren. Jan 23rd 1952."
Shelton (1871-1966, née Beal) and her husband, Albert Leroy...Learn More
