Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None.

NIETZSCHE, Friedrich.

Item Number: 128452

New York: The Macmillan Company, 1896.

First American edition of the author’s magnum opus, published simultaneously in New York and London. Octavo, original cloth. The first edition is of legendary scarcity as it was reported that sales of the title sold just 257 copies before June 30, 1897. Translated by Alexander Tille. In near fine condition. Housed in a custom  clamshell box.

Friedrich Nietzsche was one of the most revolutionary and subversive thinkers in Western philosophy, and Thus Spake Zarathustra remains his most famous and influential work. It describes how the ancient Persian prophet Zarathustra descends from his solitude in the mountains to tell the world that God is dead and that the Superman, the human embodiment of divinity, is his successor. With blazing intensity and poetic brilliance, Nietzsche argues that the meaning of existence is not to be found in religious pieties or meek submission, but in an all-powerful life force.