NIETZSCHE, FRIEDRICH.

Analecta Laertiana. [Extract from: Rheinishes Museum für Philologie, Vol. XXV. Herausgegeben von F.G. Welcker und F. Ritschl].

(Frankfurt am Main, Verlag von Johann David Sauerländer, 1870). 8vo. Bound in a very nice recent marbled paper binding with gilt leather title-label to front board. Pp. (217) - 231. The paper is extremely brittle and cracks very easily, thus a few smaller marginal pieces of paper have chipped off, no loss of lettering.

Rare first edition of one of Nietzsche's earliest publications, his ingenious and daring philological essay on six disputed passages of Diogenes Laertius' "Lives of the Philosophers", his favoured philological topic.

Nietzsche's first published work was a philological essay published in 1867 in the respected journal of classical studies, the "Rheinisches Museaum für Philologie". That article, published on the urging of his teacher, appeared when Nietzsche had merely been studying philology for a couple of years. Nietzsche began studying philology at the University of Bonn in the winter semester og 1864/65 and quickly became a prize student. His university studies were fairly quickly interrupted, though, as he spent a year in the Prussian Artillary, from October 1867. After about half a year, he was seriously injured and had to spend the last five months there as a reconvalescent.
Nonetheless this year did not mean a break in Nietzsche's studies, quite the contrary. Already in April 1868, before his injury (in May), he published his first book review, namely that of Schoemann's work on "Die hesiodische Theogonie", which had just appeared. And after the injury, he naturally had even more time for studying at his disposal; "Nietzsche's protracted recovery from his military injuries allowed him considerable time to study and to take on other scholarly duties… (Schaberg, The Nietzsche Canon, p. 10).

Following his important "On the Sources of Diogenes Laertius" from 1869-69, Nietzsche publishes this present article on the same subject, focusing on a different part, in 1870.

"[I]t is uncertain whether all of these articles [i.e. in the Rheinisches Museum] were issued individually and there is no evidence in Nietzsche's letters to suggest the standard offprint policies of Rheinisches Museum at the time." (Schaberg, p. 13).

Schaberg 13

Order-nr.: 41471