Also sprach Zarathustra. Ein buch fur Alle und Keinen.

First edition, first collected issue. 8vo. 114; [4], 103, [1, blank]; [4], 119, [1, blank], pp. Contemporary quarter vellum with paste paper covered boards, spine lettered in gilt on red morocco label, with the original front printed wrapper bound-in (small amount of faint spotting to rear endpapers, some faint marking to the second sectional half title, a few pencilled marginal highlights to pp. 10-12 of second part, otherwise generally internally clean; some trivial wear to tips of spine and corners, light scuffing to covers, notwithstanding an excellent copy in a pleasing contemporary binding). [Leipzig], [E.W. Fritzsch].

The first collected issue of Nietzsche's defining work, reissuing the first edition sheets of the first three parts - originally printed and published separately by Ernst Schmeitzner between 1883 and 1884 - with a new title-page and half-titles inserted before parts two and three.

A sprawling, rhapsodic work, primarily in prose, Zarathustra served as a thunderous announcement of Nietzsche's mature philosophy. Under the guise of the central character Zarathustra, a re-invention and subversion of his namesake, Nietzsche expounds his declamatory message of the Übermensch, the death of God, and the transvaluation of all values.

The title page of the present example is a variant not listed in William H. Schaberg's bibliography of Nietzsche; our copy does not have an imprint and bears only the text 'Also Sprach Zarathurstra.' within a double-line border, whereas the example described by Schaberg has the more extensive text 'Also sprach Zarathurstra. Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen. Von Friedrich Nietzsche. In Drei Theilen. Leipzig. Verlag von E. W. Fritzsch' (see: Schaberg, The Nietzsche Canon: A Publication History and Bibliography, p. 218).

PMM, 370 (first edition); Schaberg, 45.

Stock Code: 250340