POLEMIZING AGAINST EUROPEAN CULTURE

NIETZSCHE, FRIEDRICH.

Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen. Erstes Stück: David Strauss. Der Bekenner und der Schriftsteller. + Zweites Stück: Vom Nutzen und Nachteil. Der Historie für das Leben.

Leipzig, Fritzsch, 1873 + 1874. 8vo. Both works bound together in a nice contemporary brown half calf with gilding to spine. Binding very nice, clean, and tight. Internally quite a bit of brownspotting to first and last leaves of each work. (2), 101, (1) pp. + 111, (1) pp.

First editions, first issues of these two separate works that make up the first two parts of the "Untimely Observations", which was originally intended by Nietzsche to be a series of thirteen separate works gathered together under this common title. The ambitious project didn't come about as intended, and only four works appered in the series. "Nietzsche actually produced four of these compositions before abandoning the plan, although it is evident that his heart was no longer in the series after the publication of the third essay." (Schaberg, p. 32).

Of each of the two works, 1.000 copies were printed. Of the first 483 remained unsold, and this is this one of 517 copies. Of the second, 778 remained unsold, and this is thus one of merely 222 copies.

The "Observations" were to deal with aspects of contemporary European culture, with a focus on German culture.
The first works of the series combine the Nietzsche that we know from e.g. "The Birth of Tragedy" with an early polemical style that properly comes to live in his later works. Especially the first of the "Observations", the fierce attack on "David Strauss, the Confessor and Writer" is considered one of Nietzsche's most humorous works and a prime example of his early polemical style. He attacks Strauss, accusing him of being a philistine of pseudo-culture, and his latest work "The Old and the New Faith: A Confession" from 1871, taking it to be an example of the German thought of the time, and accuses it of being a vulgar reading of history in the service of a degenerate culture.

In the second of the "Observations", "On the Use and Abuse of History for Life", Nietsche introduces his attack on classic humanism and presents his own alternative way of interpreting history. With his attacks on the historicism of man and his view of history as such, this constitutes one of Nietzsche's most interesting works and the one that best captures his concept of "untimeliness".

Schaberg 23a. + 25a

Order-nr.: 45438